Jeremy's Travels in Thailand

Over and Out

2006-10-20T21:06:00.000+09:30

In KL airport at the moment, waiting for half an hour for my seven hour flight back to Adelaide. Converted all my left over currency back to Aussie dollars, boy, is it good to see some Australian currency again! I didn't expect such a strong emotion.

So I am signing off.

Flying is so nice now, now that I have discovered nasal decongestants. Is it right to finish a three and a half week travel blog talking about snot? Mmm. Maybe. Flying is never ever painful now, albeit with a runny nose. Yay. I think it's important you know that. But just the phrase, nasal decongestant... eww gross.

Iaa kawn. Khawp khun ka.

Welcome home. Or, as Virgin would say, safe onward journey. Adelaide. Home sweet home.

Over and out.

One Last Breakfast

2006-10-20T13:28:00.000+09:30

Where would I be without the Lonely Planet guide? I dunno, but I wouldn't have seen half as much, and probably would have paid twice as much. Although, how much did I miss because it wasn't mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide? The tiger temple wasn't in it at all, Sonja only knew of it because she had heard of it before, and took quite some research to find out how to get there.

Nice photo hah? Not my book though, mine is all tatty with lots of post-it notes hanging off it. This is Sonja's. Unexpectedly had breakfast with her and Denice, they were good to travel with, culturally aware and travel-smart. So I farewelled them again (for the third time?). Denice is off on another Intrepid tour heading south over the border, and Sonya is doing likewise independantly, before one heads to NZ, the other Au.

Whilst I'm nattering, went shopping last night. Apart from buyig a couple of presents in Phuket and sending them home with Andrew, it was my first shopping time. I bought two t-shirts. That's it. I didn't want to do it any earlier, I just didn't want to carry anything extra. Could have bought cool stuff in Chang Mai, but that was about all anyway. My bag was the same, well smaller actually, cos I lost a few items. I only packed a mosquito net and rain jacket that I never used. Other than that I packed pretty well. Phew.

My Feet in Thailand

2006-10-20T13:17:00.000+09:30

I've been saving this little collection of photos up for a couple of weeks. Thankfully though, this has not been the case. It's a collection of photos of my feet, yes, taken immediately when I turn on my camera. Remember? My camera developed this fault that meant when turned on, it would taken photos continually, often out of focus. It started happening in Phuket, but stopped on the trek, and was actually quite intermittent in between. I didn't start keeping the photos until the ferry ride back from Ko Samui, and I'm very glad to say my camera has been behaving itself for sometime now. Enjoy.

You might have noticed in the photos of me, all throughout the 3 week blog, that I am wearing a very limited set of clothes, yes? I brought with me just two t-shirts and two pairs of zip-off shorts. What you can't see in the photos, and why would you, is that I also only brought 3 pairs of underwear, and 3 pairs of socks. I have boardies too, and one spare cotton t-shirt. Each night, or second night, I would wash one set of clothes, and usually, but not always, they would be dry the next day to wear. If not, I would wear them anyway, they were close enough to dry and would take no time to dry when I wore them. They are all quick-dry, low odour retaining clothes, which is really the only way it's possible to do this little system, with cotton or jeans this wouldn't work at all. It's allowed me to pack light, which is good. I only once ever wore the cotton t-shirt and spare socks and underwear, and that was when I returned from the 3 day trek near Chang Mai and all my clothes were being washed. Other than that, I could have got away with two pairs of everything. On the down side, I am very much looking forward to going home so I can wear something different, wearing clothes that form only four possible combinations of colours gets boring very quickly. I was going to put all this into a blog entry early on, but I wasn't so sure if my little planned system would work or not, I knew I could buy extra clothes easily if it didn't. But it worked almost perfectly.

Plan G

2006-10-20T13:12:00.000+09:30

Plan A was to go to Ayuttaya on the way to Chang Mai. But as I was running out of time, I formed Plan B.

Plan B was to get off the train on the way from Chang Mai to Bangkok. It was 4.38am in the morning when we stopped there, and I had already decided to stay with the group so hopefully I could spend some time with people in Bangkok seeing stuff together. On to Plan C.

Plan C was that I would return in the next few days, Sonja was keen to come along. But because of flooding, sites were closing and the town becoming inaccessible.

Plan D was Sonja's idea, and was to catch a 3 hour train and a bus to Phanom Rung Historical Park, east of Bangkok. I mentioned these plans before I think. A day after making the plans we discovered it was an 8 hour train ride, not a 3 hour one.

Plan E was to fly there. "I'm sorry sir, we do not fly there." Oh, but your website says you do. That must be a partner airline. Who? Phuket Airlines? "But I don't think they fly there either." I don't even think Phuket Airlines exists anymore, their website is a picture of a plane with "under construction" written on it. So they didn't respond to our email and couldn't be reached by phone. Then came Plan F.

Plan F was to hire a car from Bangkok airport so we could avoid the city driving, and drive the 3 hours there and stay overnight. Driving was ideal as there were many ruins scattered within a 20 minute radius. But when we came to organise this plan the next night, it just wasn't going to be worth the cost for how little time we could spend there. Despair, were we both going to leave Thailand without seeing any 12th century temple ruins?

Then Plan G was conceived. Visit Lopburi, 2 hours by train north of Bangkok, past Ayuttaya and hopefully beyond the flooding. A town with ruins scattered throughout it.

The train ride took 4 hours, of course. We missed the rapid train because the taxi driver took us to the wrong place. To be fair though, I guess we didn't allow enough time. It became apparent he had misunderstood where we wanted to go, interpreting Sansen Station as Siam Square, a shopping district. We couldn't communicate Samsen Station, but he took us to the main railway station in Bangkok. So, being about twenty minutes late, we caught the slow 3 hour train north. About 2.5 hours into our slow and hot journey, there was an explosion sound (think pre 9/11 explosion sound) and the train ground to a halt. It doesn't take long to come to an emergency stop when the train is going so slow. For 15 minutes we watched train staff, and there are a lot of them, labour always in abundance in Thailand, scurrying up and down and around the train. After some makeshift repairs, we thankfully departed. We stopped at the next station for repairs, which likewise seemed to take forever. Passed through Ayuttaya again, still very flooded. In daylight, it was possible to see more of the extent of flooding. Sad to see people's home 1-2 metres underwater, in stagnant water that looked like it would never drain away or evaporate, waiting for the inevitable more water from upstream, or water from downstream from a king tide. Sad to see makeshift stuff people were living in on the train station platform. After 4 hours we made it to Lopburi.

But it was worth the 4 hours in a hot train on a wooden seat. There were ruins of temples everywhere, all throughout the town. The town had been built around and through this ancient temple site, once a huge temple complex from the 12th century, and with the addition of a huge palace complex in the 17th century. It was phenomenal, and there were barely any other tourists at all (make that just 4). Part of the town was overun with monkies, being a Buddhist country they are never keen to kill any animals. The monkies were absolutely everywhere, all over the footpath, shop fronts, electrical cables and buildings. Everywhere. It was a like a scene out of Gremlins.

We were both very tired, either because of the 4 hour, hot, uncomfortable train trip or just cos we were tired, I dunno, it was incredibly hot in Lopburi. We wandered around the town, frequently stopping into a 7-11 for an icecream or Red Bull or something. It was nice to wander around a Thailand town that isn't touristy, we were for the most part completely ignored and not pestered as tourists are everywhere else. Also, there were no tourist shops, so their shops were interesting to see as well. That said, this would be an appropriate time to include a quote from the book I read a week or so ago, Platform, on page 311, discusses the book The Beach and it's avoid the "touristy experience":

The early chapters of the book perfectly illustrate the curse of the tourist, caught up in a frenetic search for places which are 'not touristy', which his very presence undermines, forever forced to move on, following a plan whose very fulfillment, little by little, renders it futile. This hopeless situation, comparable to a man trying to escape his own shadow, was common knowledge in the tourist industry, Valerie informed me: in sociological terms it was known as the double bind paradox.

At the train station, we discovered that the 2 hour rapid train would cost 12 times more than the 3 hour train, and we would have to wait over 30 minutes more, and it would get into Bangkok just 15 minutes before the slow train. We took the slow train, but again, delays, delays and more delays.

Back near our hotel, which was no longer the New World Lodge that was Intrepid's hotel of choice, it was too expensive at 1000 Baht per night. That's like only $30, but wasn't worth the extra 750 Baht. It did have "river views" though. Notice the different appreciation for rivers westerner's have to Thai people? We both moved to a guest house closer to the river, just 250 Baht per night, no a/c, but fans instead, and shared toilets. That means the men's urinal is just in the hallway, yes, no kidding, almost like "oh we forgot to make a boy's bathroom, oh just chuck the thing in the hallway, it's too late to build a separate room for it now." But this is actually very common here in Thailand, urinals are often just outside on an open wall, or you can often use one in a food place and look out back over all the tables. It's just the way it is. Anyway, just not sure if I have every blogged that before, so it came as no surprise when I the setup in the guesthouse.

We went and ate tea, I had lasagne, as I blogged yesterday or something, bit over 3 weeks of Thai food now. We bumped into Denice, she had run away from her new Intrepid group that met in the hotel today. She said they were all very boring, despite being young. Her room mate though will be an apparent source of endless laughs and frustration. Upon arriving at the hotel, she asked Denise where the beach was. Dressed with lots of skin exposed, she asked Denise about visiting the temples in what she was wearing. You are supposed to be pretty much entirely covered. So this girl went out to buy something appropriate, and returned with see-through pants. Mmm...

I have really enjoyed travelling with the Intrepid group, and also being able to continue to travel together around Bangkok for the last 3 days. We bid farewell to Denice last night, and I leave tomorrow, Sonja, being the last one, leaves on Sunday. I'm looking forward to returning home, I'm seeing Alex on Saturday afternoon, Kate and Tim for tea, going for my last Heysen walk of the year on Sunday, and seeing Brad and Miriam for tea on Sunday. I'm keen to see these people now, and be rid of Bangkok. I think I said earlier, I haven't much enjoyed Bangkok, not now, at this stage of my holiday anwyay.

I like this quote from the novel I am reading at the moment, Bangkok Tattoo, by John Burdett, on page 75. I haven't checked it's truthfullness, being from a novel, but I don't really doubt it as true, since all Thai people have a formal and an informal name.

FYI:
    Roughly translated, the full name of our capital means: 'Great city of angels, the repository of divine gems, the great land unconquerable, the grand and prominent realm, the royal and delightful capital city full of nine noble gems, the highest royal dwelling and grand palace, the divine shelter and living place of reincarnated spirits.'
    Phonetically it goes like this: 'Krung Thep mahanakhon bowon rattanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratchathani burirom-udomratchaniwet mahasathan-amonpiman-avatansathir-sakkathatityavisnukamprasit.'
    There's no Bangkok in it.

Just as btw, it took me well over a week to work this out, and another week before I accepted it, but it is quite hard to get sunburnt here. I don't use any sunblock anymore, which is quite a hard adjustment to make in one's mindset, being, of course, from southern Australia where the ozone layer is comparatively thin because it is so close to the Antartic. Here, it is not so. Although we are approaching their cool season, which is when they would be furthest from the sun. Even still, I get burnt back home during winter if I was spending the time outside I have spent here.

Capturing the smell

2006-10-20T13:11:00.000+09:30

I like this quote, from The Beach, which I read weeks ago now, but it's topical, from page 201:

I don't keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once, and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slopped away, as though in my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason, I don't travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost. Apart from that, photographs never seem to be very evocative. When I look through the albums of old travelling companions I'm always surprised by how little I'm reminded of the trip.
If only there were a camera that captured smell. Smells are far more vivid than images. I've often been walking in Lodon on a hot day, caught the smell of hot refuse or melting tarmac and suddenly been transported to a Delhi sidestreet. Likewise, if I'm walking past a fishmonger's I think instantly of Unhygienix, and if I smell sweat and cut grass (the lawn kind) I think of Keaty. I doubt either of them would appreaciate being remembered in such a way, especially Unhygienix, but that's how it is.
All that said, I widh there'd been someone with a camera when I sauntered out of the mist with a dead shark over my shoulder. I must have looked so cool.

Sigh... again...

2006-10-20T13:09:00.000+09:30

At this time, I don't really want to include this blog entry. Not anymore, I talked and pondered this issue a lot in the first few weeks I spent in Thailand. But, in the book I am reading now, Bangkok Tattoo, by John Burdett, has an interesting passage on page 25:

First, farang, please dump those childish notions you harbour about our working girls being downtrodden sex-slave victims of a chauvinistic male-dominated culture; take it from me, there's nothing your media won't do to comfort you in your post-industrial despair by making you believe your culture is superior to ours. (Are they kidding? I've been in Slough, England, on a Saturday night - I know what atomized basket cases you are.) These are all country girls, tough as water buffalo, wild as swans, who can't beleive how much they can make by providing to polite, benevolent, guilt-ridden, rich, condom-conscious farang exactly the same service they would otherwise have to provide free without protection to rough drunken whoremongering husbands in their home villages. Good deal? Better beleive it (don't look at me like that, farang, when you know in your heart that capitalism makes whores of all of us.) Most of our girls, being the sole breadwinners and therefore matriachs, dispence the whole gamut of family business through the medium of the mobile (generally in our staff toilet whilst changing into their working gear), from the care of the sick to hire purchase agreements, from the chastisement of miscreants to the number of water buffalo to invest in this year, from marriages to abortions, religious duties and grave decisions as to who to vote for in local and national elections.

Solved the phone charger problem (was going to call it "Homage to Hobbes")

2006-10-19T00:15:00.000+09:30

Yes, that's right, I did it again. Only this time no water was necessary. Yup, solved my lost mobile phone charger problem. Lost my phone too. Brad, you're rolling your eyes ("can't take you anywhere"), Mum, you are sighing, and Luke, you are laughing. Left it on a bus, luckily it was off. Alas, it was a cheap phone. Should have bought my old crap mobile to use (and loose).

So, I passed a test I earlier failed. We, as in Sonja, Denice and myself, caught a bus from a bus station. First, we tried catching a taxi. "oh, sir, sorry, my meter is broken. Fare will be 150 Baht, same as meter." I don't think so, I think the fare will be about 70 Baht. Strange how there can be a whole street full of taxis with broken meters. It's a conspiracy, a collusion, against all tourists. Yesterday we got to use meters because we had Bett. Today, we are tourists to be taken advantage of. Despite numerous attempts, all the taxi meters were "broken". We returned to the hotel, they would call us a metered taxi. Um, no, there too, they were put out that we didn't book a mini-van to Kanchanaburi or a taxi via them, so they instructed the taxi driver to charge us 1000 Baht, an absurb figure, stated in an instruction they thought we wouldn't understand because it was in Thai. With a few firm words, and threatening to get out of the taxi, the driver finally conceeded and turned on the meter. The fare, just 59 Baht. We went to the bus station, and managed, I don't know how, to find a bus to Kanchanaburi, but not the one we wanted. This was the slow, 3 hour bus, not the relatively quick, 2 hour bus. It was a hell ride. We saw a lot of towns, at a very slow speed. But we did have a/c, well, if you kept the curtains closed so it could work.

At Kanchanaburu, yes, that place I stayed for two nights on the River Kwae, we were planning to catch a bus towards Kao Soi to go to a Tiger Temple. But with a lot of the day already gone, thanks to our taxi incident and slow bus, we negotiated a taxi fare to the temple. It was worth it, we made it in time to see the tigers not in cages. I patted one, or several actually, and got to hold a guys hand to be taken to each rather placid looking tiger. They just feel like big cats really, I wanted to tickle their bellies. So, a homage to Hobbes, I visited his tiger friends. This place was a safe haven for tigers, with the plan that all offspring would eventually be reintroduced to the wild. Like the photo of the guy dressed like a tiger. He was actually a tour guide, and oddly, because there was a sign at the gate prohibiting people wearing red, orange and yellow from entering the tiger area.

I forgot to say much earlier, with the elephant trekking, I think I would have enjoyed it if I was a cartoon character, and the elephant had been a cartoon too. That said though, the tigers I really did enjoy as a real person (with real tigers).

We ate pizza, woah, this is my third western meal in a row, tea, breakfast (banana pancakes on Khao San Road with some drunks still partying from the night before) and now lunch too. Three weeks of Thai meals, including most breakfasts, have made me a little weary of Thai food. Had a couple of western meals with Andrew, but no more. Glad I did the Thai cooking course though, keen to cook some, but no more in restaurants when back in Adelaide please. Over it now I think. Three weeks will do that to you though.

Managed to catch the express bus back, 2 hours, indeed the Thailand roadside rushed past much faster than I have ever yet experienced in my Thailand travels. And the taxi ride from the bus station back to the hotel, you ask? "Meter?" I asked, "No working, 150 Baht for you, sir". "No, 100, no more, we only paid 59 Baht to get here." The hasty reply in submission, "100 Baht". But it was a tuk-tuk, a tuk-tuk in Bangkok has all the elements of a ride at an amusement park, but is cheaper and you actually get somewhere, and maybe all your change doesn't fall out of your pocket too (but I'm sure if you had a mobile it would).

I haven't lost anything of significance yet, camera, passport, cash, luggage etc. Nor have I lost or broken my sunnies! I must be doing good.

In response to Anon, yes we saw Bett last night. Mekaela, Deb, Denice, Sonya and me went out for tea and drinks at an Irish themed pub. We drank a 4L Singka tower. The pub was clearly for westerners, Bett was asked for id (he is like 32 and looks it) because they don't want "his type" there, but he was with us. We bid our farewells to Bett, Mekaela and Deb.

National Geographic (Hill tribe photos uploaded)

2006-10-17T23:08:00.000+09:30

The best way to describe the Hill Tribe Trek. 2 words. National Geographic.

Photos have now been inserted into the original hill tribe trek blog entry.

Google it.

2006-10-17T23:04:00.000+09:30

The Intrepid tour finished in Bangkok at the railway station at 6am this morning. Emma and Bek continued on the train for a couple of stops to meet a friend to transfer to Pattaya, a beach on the south eastern coast. Helene left too. The rest of us went with Bett to the guest house, showered and ate breakfast. Bett, Makeala, Deb and myself went to the Grand Palace, a must see when in Bangkok. On the way he showed us where he studies at uni, and a favourite spot of his to read books on the riverbank. We later ate lunch at the uni cafe, very cheap, very yummy food.

The Grand Palace, what to say? Google it. Think grand over-the-top European buildings of the 17th and 18th centuries, but just adjust that for Thai style of the late 18th century. Lots of gold. Yep, you got it. Was interesting to see the different influences on the architecture each king used to build his temple of buildings, Chinese, Dutch, Cambodian. I liked that Bett talked us through it all, so we didn't need to read the leaflets, but also, the Intrepid tour was over, he was doing this on his own time. I like that. Hopefully he will come out to tea with us tonight.

Made some rough plans with Sonja to go and see an alternative temple ruins to Ayuthaya, about 3 hours east of Bangkok, Phanom Rung Historical Park. We will stay there overnight to make it work. Will do that Thursday, and return Friday for my afternoon flight. Tomorrow will go to the Tiger Temple near Kanchanaburi, yes, that place again, but will go by bus this time. No more trains, no way, no thanks, done the Thailand trains thank you. Will change to a cheaper hostel for tomorrow night, this one at 1000 Baht per night is about the most expensive place I have stayed, and really isn't worth the extra $$. Anyway, that's the plans for the next three days. I'm excited now, and glad not to have to spend all those days in Bangkok. The pollution here is chronic.

686 kms. That's it.

2006-10-17T23:03:00.000+09:30

686 kms. That's it. How can it possibly take 14.5 hours to traverse? That's an average of 47 km/h. The Lonely Planet guide makes it impressively clear, the bus is quicker than the train, although one must risk the numerous scams attached to the selling of bus tickets for the Chang Mai to Bangkok corridor. Could this train go any slower? Could it stop at any more obscure wayside stations? Can you beleive it, this is an express train! Yes, we are skipping stations. Yes, there is a slower train.

Why is there a need for a long announcement at each station we stop at? If you are asleep, are you going to awake to a two minute announcement, and collect your belongings and get off the train in the time allocated? I doubt it. And if you are sitting at a train station at 4am in the morning waiting for the one overnight train to Bangkok to stop, do you need it to be announced when it arrives? Can't you see the damn stopped passenger train in front of you? Every carriage has the destination on it anyway, in both Thai and English, is there any room for confusion? Are there even any passengers getting on anyway? I haven't seen any.

Sick of my whinging yet? I'm not, so I'm just going to keep going on for a while, ok? Unlike you, I have 14 hours. So, the choice between being intolerably hot, or having the window open and being eaten alive by mosquitos? Mmm. Hard choice. The carriage is fan cooled, but the fans are, mmm, a little rare, and not so cooling. I think I counted about thirty dead mozzies on my bed. Oh gross. I decided to close the window, well yes, the distance between the Chang Mai mozzies and me was ever increasing, albeit only at an astounding 47km/h, and with that the supposed risk of malaria. On that, it's worth noting a few things here. Yes, ppl in mum mode, I am still taking my anti-malarial drugs. Which, Sonya, the Dutch girl studying medicine, insists are little more than antibiotics. Figures I guess. But what to note, you ask? The travellers here from Europe, told by their travel doctors not to take anti-malarial drugs, not worth the potential side effects for a country that claims to be Malaria free. Oh yes, they insist upon it. The Europeans do too. Who, the government, the people? The government I have no idea, but the local guides on the Intrepid tour, the ones who knew the hill tribes, oh no, they say, Malaria is long gone from Thailand. Maybe near the Burmese border, there is some risk, but no more. Enough ranting. The window doesn't close anyway. The supplied blanket just found a use, it's shoved in the gap between the glass and that thing they call some kind of insect screen. This carriage is so 1950 something. So that damn privacy screen can remain open, so I can gain some air. But no more mosquitos, all good.

We made the mistake, about 10pm, of looking where we were on a map. Oh my god, is it possible for a train to have travelled less distance in the last 6.5 hours?

Ok, one last thing about travel in Thailand. It is abundantly clear to all, it is damn slow. Sure, on one hand I gain a little culture, seeing how they live, and how they travel. I should shut up, it's not like we are travelling 3rd class, or 2nd class seated, or 1st class seated, we are travelling 2nd class with a berth bed thing. All in all, given I am on this train, this is probably about a lot better than most of the other people on this train. Oh, how can they bear it? Anyway, my one last thing? Air travel. I mean really, a one hour flight, $57 including taxes. Really, what am I doing on this train? Yes, it is part of my Intrepid tour, which btw, ends at 7am at Bangkok railway station.

I have really enjoyed travelling with the group. I haven't told them about this blog, but it won't take any of them too much effort to figure it out, just like you Kate, it's not too hard. I have loved this group, yes. I will miss them all. I think the younger ones have learnt a lot. I hope. Oh the stories. But it is all good, I think it is so good for them to travel to somewhere like Asia. Travel broadens the mind, that is true. I will miss Bett's "oh my god" statements.

So I have 4 days left in Thailand. What to do? 4 days in Bangkok? I hope not. Maybe a night or two in Ayuthaya, Bett's home town.

Notice something with my blog? It has slowed down, yeah? Might be two reasons for that. One, travelling with others now - is much more interesting - and two, it's what travellers do, isn't it? Initially they communicate lots, but as the time wears on, they communicate with home less and less. Sadly, it's predictable. You should have seen that one coming my friend.

Are you still reading this? You must be stuck some place for 14 hours. I can't think why else you could still be reading.

So I fin... just killed another little bastard... so I just finished... god it's hot... anyway, just finished reading my book a little while ago. Well, before I tried to sleep and gave up on that idea. Now I'm just going to write this blog and edit some photos until my laptop goes flat. Speaking of flat laptops, travelling with girls does have it challenges. So we decided to share all our hill tribe photos. Which is good, cos I stopped taking photos. I find it hard to describe actually, because I take so many photos, but I simply felt it was no longer right. I just didn't feel comfortable with it. It felt so incredibly invasive to take photos of these ppl in their everyday life. Perhaps also, it felt almost like this moment was too special to be photographed, as if it were sacred. Must the moment by stolen by photographs? Anyway, so, flat laptops? So we had managed to get them all onto one the girls laptops, which she admitted only had one hours battery life. So, knowing this, would you spend most of that one hour looking at the photos, or burning them onto a dvd, so at least I could copy more of the dvd's for the others? Yeah well, insert dvd, start burning, oh, opps, laptop flat now. Is one hour up already? Ah yes, like you didn't see that coming, Apparently not though. But it's all good, I like Denice, she is very cool. It's not her fault she is a girl, and she had another 7 girls who wanted to see the photos right then anyway.

So, the book, Platform, by Michel Houllebecq. No, it's not from the library. Of course not, don't be silly. Who takes library books overseas anyway? So, I was just telling Helen tonight, the first 150 pages of the 362 pages was very interesting, but up to page three hundred and something I was up to, dead boring. I was only continuing to read because my last two remaining books didn't look that interesting to read, and the first 150 pages of this was really good. But then, reading tonight, a couple pages in, this couple that the book is about, decide to remain in Thailand to work. Then, one dies in a terrorist attack. Mmm, good reading that, whilst one is holidaying in Thailand. The book explores the idea of sex tourism, and provides quite a convincing argument for it, but then concludes that argument with a shattering end of hopelessness and despair in the face of racial tension. I didn't see that coming. Very interesting book, but I'm not sure if I would recommend it for reading. It was very topical, no one can deny that Thailand isn't a place of sex tourism, and one can't miss the old westerners with young Thai girls on their arms. So it was appropriate for me to read I think, it was thought provoking.

6 hours to go. Yet I have nothing left to say. Thank you I hear you say, cos you have no more time to devote to reading this blog entry. It is so hot, where the hell has this train just stopped?

You are all invited to tea one day

2006-10-17T23:01:00.000+09:30

You are all invited to tea one day, I will cook you some Thai food. I have made several attempts before, and ppl said it was nice, and yes, it was nice. But now I know a lot more, thanks to the Thai cooking course I did today before catching the train.

Despite the 14 hours, I can't be bothered writing anything else. I have recipes, and lots of how-to knowledge now. And a couple of photos thanks to Helen. And a recipe book. And some curry powders and stuff which I hope wont be any problem with quarantine.

We dined riverside

2006-10-17T22:59:00.000+09:30

Photos from our final night in Chang Mai. We dined riverside. Felt like Melbourne. How an entirely odd sensation, defied all logic.

Flooding

2006-10-17T17:16:00.000+09:30

In Bangkok, arrived 6am this morning. Got a few blog entries to post, but haven't got them with me. Had planned to go to Ayuthaya which is ruins of 12th century capital of Khmer empire, but local flooding might prevent that. Worst floods in 10 years, and the town is subjected to some flooding, but it is difficult to ascertain to what extent. On the train last night it was evident there was widespread flooding north of Bangkok. There are sandbags everywhere in Bangkok in preparation for a high tide on Oct 25-25 which when combined with existing flooding and high river levels is expected to result in flooding.

Oh, just checked the official Thailand tourism website. Mmm. Ayuthaya a no-go it seems. Although the huge variety of spelling Thai place names does not help in identifying which ones they are talking about. Might try to find something eastwards.

AYUTTHAYA PROVINCE (Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya)
In spite of efforts being undertaken to protect tourist sites along the banks of the Chao Phraya River, the situation has become critical. Many key tourism sites in these areas are now heavily flooded.
For safety reasons, the Department of Fine Arts has closed Wat Chaiwattanaram temple until further notice. The road leading in and out of the Portuguese Village is also under water.
Wat Buddhaisawan has not been affected by the floods and remains open to visitors.

Blog posts and photos from hill tribe trek soon (think National Geographic). My mobile will be charged again later today.

Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-No!-No!-No!

2006-10-15T20:12:00.000+09:30

Isn't it meant to be Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Oy!-Oy!-Oy! ? Well, yes, but in the soccer game Aussies vs the boys of the Karen tribe, the Aussies lost. So the boys changed the chant to something more appropriate.

Just returned from the three day hike into the mountains near the northern city of Chang Mai. The hiking was predominately through forest, occassionally we stumbled upon a house, a valley farm or a village.

Photos later.

My favourite part of the trek was on the second afternoon, Saturday afternoon, when we reached the larger village of about 500 people. We were going down to the river for a swim (think bathing), but the local boys wanted to take us to a better place. They couldn't speak English, but it was obvious they were saying "C'mon, we'll take you to our favourite swimming place!". Much to the girls' complaints, they led us through rice paddy fields, through mud and water to a waterfall on the river. The boys took about five seconds to strip off and jump into the water, then showed us the highlight of the waterfall. They scrambled up the slippery rocks and worked their way into the middle of the river, from here, they slid down the waterfall on their bums into the pool below, made possible by the smooth slippery rocks! Looking at the boys going down the slide, one boy said to me, "le-le". They guided us up, where to put our feet so we wouldn't slip, and we tried it. Deb tested it for us first, and I followed. Woah, it didn't hurt at all, and was very fun! SO far I knew one word of the Karen tribe, "le", which means go. The boys were fun, they would say "hello-hello" to gain our attention, to show off how they could use their slingshots, or to trick us. One boy led me to the edge of the road, which had subsided so a cliff face was formed, and then promptly "boo-ed" me. The smaller ones would hide in the rice and jump out to surprise us. Some boys even tied reeds together from opposite sides of the pathway to try and trip us up. The large number of Australians that came through this village on this tour was obvious, as the boys knew "Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Oy!-Oy!-Oy!". I think this is a strong contender for my favourite part of my three weeks in Thailand.

Our guide for the trek, Oi (female), took us on a tour around the village. It felt just a bit like Sovereign Hill or something, with everyone dressed in period costumes doing what people did in that day, but it would really give you the wrong idea to say that. Yes, it was a real village, a real tribe, living in the mountains. They grew there own rice, vegetables and herbs, and made their money through making clothes to sell to trekkers or passed through, or by selling the clothes onwards in Chang Mai or beyond. Each house had it's own solar panel, which supplied a limited amount of power for lighting. The village was made up of many family huts on stilts, with chickens and pigs often living in the gardens or beneath the house. There was a network of tracks that weaved it's way through the village. There was road access to Chang Mai for motorbikes, and a local shop that sold nothing you would ever want to buy. We were followed by the group of boys that showed us their swimming spot, and it was fairly easy to communicate to them despite our limited common language. At the school, which was fairly Thailand typical, with a some school rooms and a football pitch, we played a game of soccer. Girls onto boys. So that meant all the trekkers onto the local boys and me. After two goals nil, it was obvious the boys were going to win, so I was put back into the trekkers team.

We spent the night at the house of a local, and the twenty-five or so children of the village came to eat rice there, and they shared some songs with us. So Sunday school or Queen visiting the Aboriginals style, but we also shared some songs with them. We taught them one with actions, which they really enjoyed.

The previous night we had stayed at a camp beside a waterfall, a little way on from a village of fifty or so people. They villagers had made steps and put up a handrail on the steep descent to the waterfall for our benefit, apparently they had done in the last week because of the rains. The camp consisted of a hut to sleep in, an open one to eat in and a cooking/cook's quarters hut.

We trekked a total of 38km, about three to four hours each day. Although this wasn't a huge daily distance (12.5kms) or duration, it was tough walking. We walked with backpacks with our clothes, sleeping gear and a little water. More drinking water was carried by our two porters, who were also available, for a price, to carry our bags if we struggled. One girl took up this offer within half and hour, and two more the following day, but for each of these girls it made the trek achievable for them. We didn't carry food, as this was supplied at each of the nightly stop-over points. We ate well, lots of northern Thai food, we really enjoyed it. The porters stocked up on water each night.

There were nine of us walking, a tour guide (for the whole six days), our trek guide (just for the three days walking) and two to three porters. It was a fun group of people, I particularly enjoyed the game of spoons we played on Saturday night. It was hilarious, as they game tends to be, we laughed for hours.

The trekking wasn't easy, but nor was it too difficult. They supplied everyone with a bamboo walking stick, but I had come prepared with my own, mainly because of my knees. The first day was tough, because it wasn't until the afternoon that we started hiking, so it was very hot, and very steep. For the Heysen trail people, think Cobbler's Hill, but a little steeper, hotter and more humid, and don't forget the extra weight we were carrying. For those of you who live near Golden Grove, erase Cobbler Hill from your mental picture, that's not what I am talking about. The following two days were easier because we started early in the morning, although it was often just as steep, but not the same severe length. The last day involved a very long downward trek, which was tiresome for anyone with knee problems.

On the first day we did Elephant trekking prior to walking, and now I know why when I have seen this before, everyone looks so bored when they return. But those elephants are huge, although smaller than their African counterparts, they still weigh some five tonnes, and eat 250kgs of fruit per day, and drink 300L of water. Woah. They are pregnant for some twenty two months, but only have between three and five babies per lifetime, a lifetime being a little over one hundred years. But the actual elephant trekking does get somewhat boring.

On the way back to Chang Mai from the trek, we did some bamboo rafting down a river. It was a little similar to the white water rafting, but because the bamboo rafts are so long, they just slip straight through rapids largely unaffected.

Back at the hotel room now, nice, having showered. The bag I hired had stunk for the first two days, but by the third, despite our daily waterfall bathings, I didn't smell it at all. In a couple of hours we are going out for tea.

We decided to share all our photos, so we will do that later, and I will add them here then.

If I gave KL a score of 2 out of 10, I would give Chang Mai...

2006-10-15T20:10:00.001+09:30

If I gave KL a score of 2 out of 10, I would then give Phuket a 4 - this is for how much I like the feel and atmosphere of the city/town - then to Ko Samui I would give a 6, to Kanchanaburi an 8, and to Chang Mai? A 10! This city is so cool, I could see that from the air as my plane descended into the airport. I immediately like the feel of the city as the taxi drove us into it. The city was established in the twelth century with city walls and a moat, although I think none of it survives today. Driving past in the car, I thought the wall looked like it was in too good a condition, and it turned out some sections have been rebuilt, the Tha Phae Gate, near where I am staying, was rebuilt in 1985 from archeological and photographic evidence (the original wall survived until at least 1899). The nearby corner of the original city, Katam Corner, looks much older, and was rebuilt around 1800. The moat is called a moat, so I guess it surrounded the city, although I haven't explored very far yet to check this out. It is clearly a moat though, and where the wall once was, as their are parallel roads on either side of it. Combine the remaining walls with the moat, and the numerous coffee shops lining the pavements (coffee shops were pretty rare down south), the city almost has a European feel to it.

When I collected my baggage at the airport off of the carousel, it was obvious someone had been eyeing off my bag. Why? The young German guy was looking for a fellow backpacker to split the taxi fare into the city. I like it.

I was so releived to make it to my hotel room, yay, a comfortable bed and a bathroom to myself, complete with a hot shower with a shower screen and a nice clean toilet. I like it! I met with the Intrepid tour guide to sign some paperwork and the like. Almost everyone else had already checked in, and scanning through the list something quickly struck me. There were nine people on the trek, and aside from the guide himself, I was the only guy! Mmm. Maybe I will like this trek more than I expected? Although I usually like some guys around too!

Before the 5pm meeting time, I explored some of the city walls and city, looking also for a replacement phone charger for my phone. Bangkok airport had revealed nothing, and this city looked likewise. So I'm thinking now, no mobile service again until I return to Australia. Problem with that is it also means no mp3's, and I have no idea what time it is, or have an alarm clock. After some exploring I found an alarm clock on my camera, and I also turn on my camera to check the time too. Glad I changed the time zone on it when I arrived in Thailand. Sat in one of the pavement coffee shops and ate some chocolate icecream covered in Baileys whilst sipping a Guava juice. Aah. I love this city. I wish I could spend more time here, leaving on the trek tomorrow. Returning on late Sunday afternoon, and will spend Monday morning here. Keen to do a cooking class here then, and Helen, the 45 year old woman from Sweden, is keen to join me for that one. As I walked along one of the moats/canals, I saw some boys swimming there. It was kinda cool to watch, and I tried to take some discreet photos to capture the child-like innocence of it, but it kinda felt creepy to do so (that's what p-people do? eww). One of the boys saw me taking a couple of photos on the opposite side of the bank, so as his mate dangled from a rope, too scared to let go into the water, he jumped into the water and pulled his mate's pants down. This didn't help him overcome his fear to let go of the rope and fall into the water though! Very amusing. And since I'm not a p-person, not photos!

I also took a photo of a giant poster of the King, on the front of a building. Images like this are plastered all over the country, and most shops and the like have pictures of him hanging behind the counter. No, I don't think any of his photos look good, and yes, he had those same glasses in his coronation pictures when he was a teenager.

There are five Australians on the trek, one Danish, one Dutch, one Swedish and one from Japan: Mikala, 18, from Mount Gambier, and her friend Deb, 18, from Mount Gambier but now QLD coast, originally from Zimbabwee. Emma, 21, from Melbourne and her friend, Bec from some obscure town near Euchunga, actually, wrong spelling, but that similar place in NSW on the upper Murray. There is Denice from Denmark, Helen from Sweden, Sonya, studying medicine, from Holland and Milako from Japan. They are all early twenties, except Helen, myself and Bett, the 32 year guide (male). Most of them had actually commenced a longer tour in Bangkok, but I and a couple of others were joining the shorter part of the tour here in Chang Mai. Mikala reminds me of Nicole Jones, both her voice and her words, Emma reminds me of Anna Gordon, her voice anyway.

We met with a New Zealander to talk trekking gear, and he hired or sold us stuff we didn't have. I hadn't brought a sleeping bag, just a liner, so I hired one for the colder mountains. We shall see it I need it or not. Also hired bigger backpack for a day pack, a rollie mattress (which btw will still hurt my bruised ribs but alas, better than nothing). Bought a poncho, some biodegrable soap and shampoo and a really really small towel. So I could have left at home in Australia my rain jacket, because it is so warm here, and the rain never lasts so long, a poncho is better, and much smaller. Also, I needed have bothered buying or bringing the mosquito net, cos even though in Australia Intrepid said they weren't supplied, it turns out they are. And I should, perhaps, have brought my small microfibre towel, not just my large one that was suitable for the beach too.

Love it so much spending time with people again. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have met lots of people in my travels, but the conversation always starts with "where you from?" and goes on from there, but never as far as it would over the space of many hours. So I really like that I have spent time with these ppl tonight, and look forward to the next few days with them. It makes holidaying so much more interesting, I think I was having trouble holidaying by myself. Met people, yes, but hard to form good relationships, like I said, in just ten to thirty minutes and no more. Possibly if there were really backpackers accom it would be much, much easier, but there isn't. My mention of culture shock yesterday was really in relation to travelling alone, it's much easier to deal with when you are with someone else to voice differences and solve problems together, by oneself it can seem a little overwhelming. Even little things like finding an atm, I problem solve that like I would at home, which doesn't work here in Thailand at all! For instance, spotting a Caltex servo in the distance, oh there, in there there will be an atm, there always is in Caltex servos. They are branded identically as they are in Australia, but are not so similar inside. Not atms in them! That's just a little example, and one that can be quite difficult to solve when you don't know how to think as a Thai person, and not as an Australian. Much harder than it seems!

Shared tea together at a Thai restaurant, where we discovered Sonya was a vegetarian and Deb couldn't eat anything spicy (it made her poop, to put it politely), and Helen, perhaps because it was her first day in Thailand, was distressed that they brought out each dish separately and not all at once. It's a Thai thing, it what they do. You are supposed to share each dish as it is ready and brought out, not waiting for all the dishes to come. Because I was one of only two guys, I felt compelled to drink beer, which isn't a problem cos I would have ordered it anyway, just I felt compelled to do so with no choice. Ha ha, life is odd? Later we went to the night markets, why would I go with eight girls? The markets here are considerably better than any others I have seen here in Thailand so far, as they don't just sell rip-off crap geared to Australians. SO the numbers of stalls selling rip-off surf wear, sunnies and dvds is minimal. Most of the stalls were selling local handmade products, so many cool things I would like to buy and bring home. How unusual of me! But still, I don't want to carry any of it, lots of cool artwork and fantastic paper globe fairy lights. I bought a torch to replace my lost one, the very expensive, well, the most money I have ever spent on a torch before - torch I had left/lost in Ko Samui. Need one to read at night.

So the list of things I left/lost in the hotel room is growing every day. I can't beleive it. Of course I can though, it is just so me, I always leave things behind. I can't think where in the hotel room they are though, I am always so careful not to spread out and try to leave everything in my bag, exactly for this reason. SO the list that hopefully won't grow any further now amounts to:

Mobile phone charger
Thai-Aussie electrical adapter
10-in-1 tool kit (that was like $50! Grr!)
Swiss army knife (overkill, but very useful for cutting my sports tapes for my knees)
Tamper-tell things for baggage (but mostly important for flying into Thailand, not out of)
First Aid Kit, if it can be called that, it was so cheap and nasty and a total waste of money, I'm glad I lost it (on the trek, I'll take the drugs, others the first aid stuff)

Thankfully though, it's not like I lost my wallet, money, camera, passport, credit card or laptop. Or a library book. Not that I have any with me, of course.

Thanks

2006-10-11T23:40:00.000+09:30

So my mobile is flat, so I am missing playing some tunes. I left the charger in my last hotel room, with my sun block. But I have spare, and maybe will be able pick up a new charger in Bangkok. Reading the Bangkok newspaper yesterday I read about Malaria. Good reminder, I started my tablets immediately, and just when I was meant to. Phew.

Sometime soon I need to discuss my culture shock. Not now though. Maybe that's an in-person one. It's complex.

So I haven't sent any postcards yet. Mmm. Should I? If you want one perhaps you should comment here, and I will judge the sincerity of your request. Prob not get a postcard. But I will send one to Lisa, Mahala and Ebony, just gotta find some cool ones. Everyone else can plead.

Oh btw, thanks for all your comments. I had a good laugh at some of them. I haven't really had time to reply to any, but I am very amused, and touched. Thanks. No Brad, you don't have to comment every time you visit, once is fine. Alex you are funny. Lyn, I missed the walk, but today I walked 12km along an old railway line.

Ever enjoyed enjoyed the satisfaction of opening a cold can of coke?

2006-10-11T23:35:00.000+09:30

Ever been thirsty on a hot day, and enjoyed the satisfaction of opening a cold can of coke, oh that sound, and taking the first refreshing sip? Yeah, so I figured I might do likewise. After wandering along the street in Nam Tok looking for somewhere that kinda sold western drinks, I found some coke, not my fav, but I was over drinking water all day. The girl there took off the bottle top, as is customary, then proceeded to pour the coke into a small plastic shopping bag, and sticking a straw in the bag before carefully handing me the two handles. Oh. Kinda takes the edge off it, doesn't it? I hadn't seen this yet in Thailand, and maybe my face showed that. The boy wearing makeup who was watching thought it was all very amusing. What can I say though, the drink cost me less than 3 cents. Later that day, whilst waiting at traffic lights, I saw a lady drinking in a similar fashion. Mmm, interesting.

I tried to find the bus station this morning. I couldn't. Partly because I didn't know what to look for, yeah, but remember, this is Thailand, and I haven't seen a bus station as yet, just little roadside places claiming to be bus stations. You'd think I could find the buses, but I couldn't find many of them either. I had determined to catch a sawngthaew today, a local bus, but it was a little too hard of a challenge. I failed that one I think. Besides not being able to pronounce that s word, which made it difficult to ask where to find one, I had the further problem of catching the right one, the local bus to Thong Pha Phum, stopping at Chawng Khao Khaat. Seriously, do you understand, even when I try to pronounce these names, even using the sounds guide in my language guide, locals just stare blankly back at me. I couldn't even search for the bus with the T name on the front of it, as the local buses are for locals and not foreigners, the destination names aren't transliterated into English. And seriously, written Thai looks like scribbes, and I didn't even know how either of those destinations would be written in Thai. Even if I did, and could show ppl, often they can't read it. So I gave up. It would have been cheap, very cheap, had I managed to work it out, but instead I went and rented a car - sorry Andrew. Cost me 800 Baht (A$28) for this jeep thing, felt like Jeff B driving his, but this one was a bit old and clapped out. The hiring guy was very pleased to see my Australian passport, "oh this is good, you Australian, you less likely to crash. All these other people, they drive on wrong side of road and crash. You ok with driving on left. This brings me relief."

I estimated how much petrol I would need, plus some, and managed to fill up at a servo, but only after writing on my hand how much I wanted to spend. I drove some 80kms up to Chawng Khao Khaat, or Hellfire Pass as well call it. Glad I bought that good map of Thailand when I was preparing for my trip back in Adelaide. After some confusion at the gate, this was after all a military base, I swapped my driver's licence for the right to enter. Bizarre that one needed to drive through a military base to reach Hellfire Pass. There was a museum there, but I skipped it, I think I covered that well enough yesterday. I walked down the steps to the pass, part of the Death Railway, or Dead Railway as some poor signs translate it as. This was the railway built by the Japanese during WWII I mentioned yesterday. Hellfire Pass is the location of a memorial, which I think might have been placed there by Australia, and also the start of a 4km section of the railway that has been recovered from the jungle. The railway was dismantled by the Thai Government after ten years of disuse following the war, yeah, like I mentioned yesterday. There was little left of the railway though, very few sleepers, no rails obviously (being dismantled), and all the timber bridges were also gone. Much of the ballast appeared a little false, obviously being tidied up or added to to create that authentic feel. Mmm. Love it. Not. The huge cuttings, such as Hellfire Pass, were obviously still intact, as were some of the concrete footings for the timber bridges and some of their support bases. I walked the 4km trail, passing the sign instructing people on a tour to return to the museum. This is why I was so keen to make my own way here, and not just take a tour. I wanted to walk the trail, and the car rental ended up being about the same, or a little more, than a tour would have been.

Another guy, let's call him Mr Singlet, Stubbies and Thongs, comnpletely unprepared, was also walking the trail. He was negotiating the ballast and slippery concrete steps that had been installed (to get down to the ground where the timber bridges had originally been) wearing his thongs. I found him near the end of the 4km trail, he was wondering how much further it was. We walked together a while, he was an Aussie, and had been here for a couple of months and would be here for another six or so. We talked about where we had travelled, "oh," he said, "you missed blah blah place on your way up to Bangkok." Yeah, I haven't heard of it all, what's good there? Oh. A good sex place. Right. We then moved on to him asking if I had found a Thai girlfriend yet. Um, no, just the one proposal so far. "Why not?" he asked, "there are so many, they are always so friendly, and besides, ppl here only average about 5000 Baht per month, so it costs very little to have one for a week or so." Yeah, right. We talked of some more travel locations, "oh this area here, blah blah place, very poor area of Thailand. I was shocked to see how poor they were, you don't see much of this in Thailand. Cambodia, Burma, yes, but not in Thailand. But the ppl, they are so friendly there, and the girls, so very cheap." Aha, do I really have to walk the whole 4kms back with this guy? Fortunately, he thought it was a forty minute walk, when the sign said allow two and half hours one way. He decided he had better return, his other travel people (presumably his Thai 'girlfriend') would be waiting at the car. I held my tongue, he didn't have a map on him, and had no idea where the trail ended. I didn't tell him we were standing about a hundred metres from the end. So I was spared having to endure more of him. I walked a little beyond the trail, a further 4kms had been cleared, but no steps and stuff installed. It was much more overgrown, and it was easy to see how overgrown the track would have become once it was dismantled.

It was interesting to see things like bomb craters beside the track and near where bridges were. Also of interest, quite a long section of embankment had been affected by subsidence, hige dips having formed in the trackbed. I learned on a sign later, this is thought to have been deliberate, the POW's filling some of the embankment with wood and other vegetable matter, so the track would collapse over time. It is thought this happened quickly, within it's two operating years, and the Japanese worked around it by building small trestle bridges over the areas. There was a station, which showed where the passing tracks were, but also it was cool that various tracks had been built out into the jungle to hide trains from the enemy. During it's three years or so of working life, as the railway got bombed, trains became stuck in still operating sections. The Japanese still transported goods along the railway, at each bomb site they got the POW's to carry everything by hand to a waiting train on the other side. This meant it would take months for goods to be sent into Burma.

I walked about 12kms I think, I really enjoyed it. I got very muddy, but it was cool. It was really nice to walk through the rain forest whilst it was raining, refreshing, and a cool experience.

Hellfire Pass was so named, as after the 'speedo' was called (the this railway is going to take forever at this rate, let's make them work eigtheen hours a day to speed things up) the cutting would be lit up at night time with fires, lamps and diesel torches, creating an eerie light, intensified by the shadows of the guards and gaunt prisoners along the rockface.

I was asked to sign the guestbook, and noted that most of the entries were from Australians. It's what we do, though, isn't it. When we go abroad, we feel obliged to stop by places where Australians have died in war. Nothing wrong with that, just struck me that many other nations mustn't do likewise, since so many others died on that same railway. Mr SST reckoned that every sleeper represented one death. Not sure if he was right, but there weren'y many sleepers to help visualise that, although it was much more meaningful then the incomprehensible numbers I had seen yesterday at the museum.

I drove on to a national park, hoping to see some springs and waterfalls and stuff. I had spent most of my cash on petrol, asnd had forgotton to go to an atm before leaving Kanchanaburi. I tried looking in a town on the way, but that was just stupid really. Atms are only where the westerners are. I didn't have the 400 Baht entry fee to be paid by foreigners. Locals paid 10 Baht. I also discovered why my train fare yesterday was four times greater than I expected, a surcharge for foreigners. I later found 200 Baht with my car rental receipt. Oops. Driving back home I stumbled across some water falls in Nam Tok, and also the site where the railway from Bangkok now ended. I don't think I have every seen so much water before!

I tried finding a historical site off the main road, but it was poorly signposted and my map too small to show enough detail. By the time I had found it it had already closed. Had I found it the first time I was there, I would have still been able to go in. I was a little dissapointed, it was the excavated remains of a key 13th century Khmer outpost of the Angkor empire - a city and temples.

I was glad I rented a car today though, driving wasn't so hard, although I was only really driving on country highways.

I will be sad to leave here tomorrow, I will miss the cool guesthouse with it's riverside lawns and hammocks, and the excellent restaurant/cafe that serves such yummo cheap genuine Thai food. There is lots to do around this area too, and it is fairly easy to move around, I saw plenty of sawngthaew out and around in the country towns. But I won't miss the cold showers. So here ends the history lessons btw.

PS again, hi-res photos on the plaques and stuff if you want to read them. Click on big photo to see proper big.

Do you always ride a girl's bike to the cemetery?

2006-10-11T23:29:00.000+09:30

I found the place I had chosen to stay at, checking out options thoroughly by using my Lonely Planet guide and the internet a couple of days ago. So I refused all the tuk-tuk and motorbike taxi driver's offers to take me someone. No doubt they would have their commission lined up. So I walked, with a few likeminded travellers from the station, it wasn't far to walk. Small town, nice, a good change from Phuket and Ko Samui.

I hired a bicycle, but I should have shopped around a little. I got a girl's bike, but they were the only options. Little basket on the front etc. Thai size too. Later, I saw some good mountain bikes on offer elsewhere, alas. Spent the day exploring a couple of cemeteries, museums and the bridge. The Thailand-Burma Railway Centre was a good museum. Made me think I was back home in Australia, almost completely forgot I was in Thailand, because the museum was so western style. You know the sort, lots of interactive displays, arty informative signs, lots of photos and models, a little video, and some sculptures and quotes and stuff. And air conditioning that worked, in a modern, nice western style standard building. So I enjoyed reading about all the WWII stuff about how Japan had invaded Thailand specifically so they could gain access to the British held adjacent Burma. Japan built this railway, to connect from Bangkok into Burma to move troops and resources into Burma so they could gain control of Burma. The seas were too dangerous, so a railway was the only option. They built it is some incredibly small amount of time, by using Thai & Malay workers, workers from India and by utilizing their vast POW resources. They underfed them, the workers receiving about half the calories they needed to perform the work demanded of them, and the rations were of very poor quality to make it worse. Their water was often contaminated, and the living conditions foul. Health was generally bad, and many of the POW's had been transferred out of hospitals in Singapore and the like to work. When the wet season came, disease and accidents were rife. There was little or no machinery, and little or no medical supplies. The Japanese had a policy of underfeeding (even more so) the hospital patients, so as to encourage them to get back out and work. Awful stuff.

The famous bridge over the River Kwae was actually a timber bridge, and was demolished fairly early when it was replaced with a steel bridge that the Japanese had removed (read stolen) from Java. The Allies bombed the steel bridge towards the end of the war, and also bombed POW work camps and ships, because the Japanese refused to let the Allies know where POW camps were and ships that were transporting POW's. WHen Japan surrendered, Britain hurriedly took control of the railway and dismantled a chunk of it to render it useless for it's original purpose. It was then sold to the Thai Government. I love the stupidity of this bit. The Thai minister, so happy to have received this new railway, decided they would go on a tour of it despite being advised not to do so. He died when his train fell down some ravine because part of a bridge had collapsed (not the famous bridge) and the train had simply not been able to stop in time. As part of the compensation to be paid by Japan, they were made to pay for repairs to the famous bridge, although after the Thai's government's little accident the railway wasn't used for about a decade, when they demolished a fair chunk of it and retaining some of it for current use, although it has only like four trains a day now.

Saw a couple of cemeteries. The Chinese one is in stark contrast to it's Allied neighbour, both in the town. The Allied cemetery is well kept and carefully gardened, but the Chinese cemetery is fairly run down and overgrown. It mystified me a bit as to why all the decorative (and I'm sure culturally meaningful) items had been recently thrown under a tree to rot. I rode my girlie bike out to another Allied cemetery 3kms out of town, Chungkai Cemetery.

I visited the famous bridge later in the day. Thailand can be so odd. It's a regular railway with trains (well durggh), but you are free to walk across the bridge anyway, which seems reasonably un-pedestrian friendly. Numerous refuges (if that's what you call them) have been added in case a train should come, or the dumb tourist train that saves the fatto-s from having to walk across the bridge to see it.

The Jeath Museum was lame. Think a really disorganised, run down old building, with lots of tattered old, dirty and damaged displays. Lots of things in cabinets, with no explanantion. Like a whole cabinet of clocks. What the? So lame compared to the other museum I visited, this one was so old school and boring. There was a model of a POW in some kinda suffering position, but I'm not surprised he was hurting, since all his fingers, his leg, a foot and his penis had been broken off by vandals. Nice display. Not. They claim to be the original musueum (they're certainly not the best).

Everything is so cheap now that I'm not in Phuket and Ko Samui. Meals are like less than 100 Baht, when before they were like 150 to 300 Baht. Had something I haven't seen on other Thai menus tonight, rice with chicken, ham, vegetables and pineapple, all within a hollowed out pineapple. It was like one of the best meals I have had here in Thailand. Loving all the fresh fruit juices too, since they are the first place I have seen to assure you their ice is from clean and not contaminated water. The place I'm staying is cool, it's only costing me A$2 a night, but it's definately in a league of it's own. I've got my own room, but a shared bathroom (cold shower), but the restaurant is very cool, and the lawns in the huge courtyard facing the river is filled with deck chairs and hammocks. So I finished reading The Beach this arvo in a hammock, as the sun set over the river. Just like the beaches in Thailand, the design of the town likewise shows nothing of the river really, it's just the guesthouses and hotels that do that. So I really appreciate how nice the lawns and garden feel here is at this guesthouse.

Lost my phone charger, so my phone will be dead very soon. Left it at the last hotel, some 1000kms south. Will try to pick up a charger in Bangkok, but not really sure where to start looking. I think because I didn't sleep properly, I got my dates a little mixed up. No, I always get dates mixed up. And Andrew isn't here now to tell what day of the week it is. Been having lots of trouble working out the train or bus timetables to organise myself to get to Chang Mai by 5pm on Thursday to join my trek tour. So to make it a little easier, and to cut my travel time down by a whole day and not have to face sleeping overnight on a bus again, have booked a domestic flight from Bangkok to Chang Mai for Thursday afternoon. Means I can stay here another day, planning to head out to Hells Pass tomorrow and do a walk along the old railway track for a couple of hours. Should be good, missed doing my regular hikes, and had a couple of emails, thank you, from people who did the Heysen End to End 2 walk last weekend.

I feel this blog entry has been a little all over the place, but that's what you get hey when you are tired cos you tried to sleep on a bus.

PS some of the photos of plaques and stuff I have uploaded the hi-res photo as well, so you can read it.

22 hours in transit

2006-10-11T23:15:00.000+09:30

22 hours to go some 1000 kms. Typical Thailand. Arrived at the ferry to leave Ko Samui, to be told to wait, only to watch the ferry depart. Oh. Then a group of us were put onto a bus, on overbooked bus, and driven to another ferry pier, to a catch a decripet ferry to Don Sak. The approaching weather looked dismal, and reminded me of Heysen's paintings of the Flinders with dramatic clouds and emphasized mountains.

Then it was so Surat Thani, the town where a few days ago I got to sit in some disgusting little office for a few hours. We sat there again, waiting for our 6.30pm bus to Bangkok. This is the travel agent who showed me a photo of his bus hanging on the wall, to reassure me he wasn't selling me some dodgy bus ticket. So at 6.30, what pulls up on the road outside? A coach? No. A crusty bus? No. A mini-van? No. A car. The driver, unable to tell us anything at all, takes us to another transit point, where we wait another hour or so with other travellers who have come from other transit points. Chatted to a couple of people who had been to the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-Ngan. Really, I did know it was on, but hadn't checked the dates, because I had no intention of going to the islands. Anyway, Finnish boy had his passport stolen, as he waited in the queue to place his bag into a safety deposit box. Canada hat boy lost US$500, his watch, phone and necklace after having his drink spiked. We discussed the pros and cons of private tourist transport, such as we had booked and were waiting for, and using the government buses. The government buses work well, and is much easier to predict the arrival and departure times, but cost more. The private stuff seemed fraught with danger, but was cheaper. Lots of scams going out of Bangkok with private buses, the you book for a luxury coach and a crappy bus turns up scam, 'oh, the coach broke down', but of course there never was a luxury coach. The English couple told me of a friend who had caught an overnight bus to Bangkok, the bus had rolled off an embankment, but as all were sleeping (apparently including the bus driver) there were no injuries. He has this crazy photo of all these travellers standing next to an overturned bus.

The bus to Bangkok eventually arrived, two buses, both fully booked. These buses, never new, but maybe like 15 years old or so, it's like places like Australia sell their old buses to Thailand (both being left-lane drive). It was only 8pm, the bus due to arrive in Bangkok at 5.30am. I made friends with the person sitting next to me. Later he got a lot friendlier with me, oh, no, hang on, I think he was asleep. I had intended to read, and did so for a few minutes, until the driver turned out the cabin lights. People fumbled to turn on their individual reading lights, I don't know why they bothered, none of them worked. So it was an early sleep for all of us. I took my motion sickness tablets, thinking they would help me sleep cos they made me so drowsy last time I took them. I didn't think they were working until we had a 1am break at some weird place, oh yes, the tablets were working. I'm going to whinge about overnight bus travel now, so if you are all too familiar with overnighting it on a bus, tune out I think? My stupid seat didn't recline cos it was busted, yay, and the bus was freezing cold. They had blankets, but only a handful, and none of the individual controls for the a/c outlets worked. I shoved a decorative doily up mine. Sweet. I could sleep now without freezing. Had the aisle seat, which means you get more room, but need to master the act of sleeping with the aid of only the backrest, and not a window as well. And absolutely nothing to look at if you can't sleep. Damn it. Wasn't too bad, glad I took the tablets. As we pushed into Bangkok, I decided I might change my travel plans for the day. I had planned to get to a railway station and catch a train out to Kanchanaburi, site of the bridge over the River Kwae, but my terrible sleep made me think I might stay in Bangkok tonight, and head in for a nap this morning. But in the 6.30am daylight of the Bangkok street, with out luggage dumped on a busy peak hour traffic road, and taxi drivers heckling us to take us places, I felt awake enough to take the train. On the train, however, I found it so hard to stay awake, but I had to so I wouldn't miss my station. The train station was like Indian style, that's the best way I can put it. The train was third class, so uncomfortable wooden benches, but it was all good. I'm sure you can all imagine what I saw out of the train window as it trundled through Bangkok, you've all seen similar stuff on tv.

Today, Wednesday, I have started reading a new novel. On travel, I like this quote from page 30, the main character it funny cos he is, in his own words, ecocentric and neurotic. On plane travel:

Taking a train today, regardless of airline, regardless of destination, amounts to being treated like shit for the duration of the flight. Crammed into a ridiculously tiny space from which it's impossible to move without disturbing an entire row of fellow passengers, you are greeted from the outset with a series of embargos announced by stewardesses sporting fake smiles. Once on board, their first move is to get hold of your personal belongings so they can put them in overhead lockers - to which you will not have access under any circumstances until the plane lands. Then, for the duration of the flight, they do their utmost to find ways to bully you, all the while making it impossible to move about, or generally move at all, with the exception of a certain number of permitted activities: enjoying fizzy drinks, watching American videos, buying duty free products. The unremitting sense of danger, fuelled by mental images of plane crashes, the enforced immobiolity in a cramped space, provokes the feeling of stress so powerful that a number of passengers have reportedly died of heart attacks whilst on long haul flights. The crew do their level best to maximise this stress by preventing you from combating it by habitual means. Deprived of cigaraettes, reading matter and, as happens more and more frequently, sometimes even alcohol. Thank God the bitches don't do body searches yet. I fell into a deep sleep as we were flying over the former East Germany.

Cynical, yes, but maybe for overnight bus travel...

Just look at the photos

2006-10-08T23:46:00.000+09:30

What a fantastic snorkelling location! Ko Tao, a couple of islands north of Ko Samui. It was an hour and a half catamaran ride, which was for the snorkelling tour and also the local ferry. From Ko Nang Yuan, which was this paradise, s set of three islands linked by a beach, we went to a bay on the main island (Ko Tao). We snorkelled for a couple of hours, it was so amazingly beautiful. So many fish, and so much coral, in a bay surrounded by granite rocks. Had lunch on the resort island of Ko Nang Yuan, which was just beautiful too. Lots of fish here too for snorkelling, but the beach was more broken up coral than sand. Walked to the lookout, beautiful view. Sorry, I find it all too hard to describe, just look at the photos. I usually snorkel with friends, so it was odd not to. Not so much to babble and point to under the water. The other ppl there would have just thought I was nuts. You already know that but no need for new ppl to see that first.

Sitting at the pier in Ko Tao, waiting for the catamaran to depart, I contemplated staying on the small island for a couple of nights. I then read my Lonely Planet guide for it and also for Kanchanaburi (think bridge over the River Kwai), and decided to continue northwards to Bangkok as planned. I feel beaches should be explored with someone like Alex or with other friends. This island was more suited to a week long relax with friends, being beautiful island to relax on, hasn't even got electricity 24-7 yet. Cheap too, lots of beaches, snorkelling and diving.

Tomorrow will explore Ko Samui a little, before catching ferry back to mainland, and overnight bus to Bangkok. I think I'm over this island, yes already. It is very much like Phuket, only less people. I'm still not keen to rent a motorbike or scooter, and there seem to be no bicyles for rent, and I'm not sure I'm game to ride on the roads with their cars and motorbikes anyway. So it's not so easy to explore the island. I could get a tuk-tuk, but that is not so cheap by oneself. Besides, after today, beaches remind me particularly of friends. I think it's time to move on. Kanchanaburi will be easy to do by bicyle, I already checked. I look forward to it. This too is why I don't plan ahead too far, it just makes me want to immediately travel there. Tsk tsk. I don't think there are many backpacker's hostels here in Thailand. Accommodation is too cheap to make it viable for them. I am much more organised for when I get to Kanchanaburi, have a few options, and have checked them on the internet, and they seem to have lots of backpackers passing through.

So for my travels tomorrow, I will be taking some seasickness tablets, not for the sea, but so I can sleep on the bus. Yeah, I think so.

Full moon party was last night, as so many people got on cat when we stopped on Ko Pha Nhan to pick up people on way back to Ko Samui. The Thai girl who sat next to me chatted to me. She was interesting, was roaming looking for some work, massage I think. Was on Ko Pha-Ngan last night, and went to the Full Moon party, but only for an hour. Too hard by herself. Anyway, we kept talking for the remaining ferry ride. She asked me to marry her. I declined her offer. We went our separate ways (relief).

PS, I uploaded the hi-res version of the panoramic photo so you can actually see it, so if you click on the large photo it will appear in a new window. But like I said before, I haven't done any other higher res photos.

"Take my word for it, you'd be much better off just not looking"

2006-10-08T23:38:00.000+09:30

"Take my word for it, you'd be much better off just not looking. Sit back, listen to some music or sleep. Don't watch," advised Miss California. Mrs South Africa just couldn't take that advice. She was making me nervous. I could take the advice, Miss California was right, it was much easier that way. Mrs South Africa though, although living in Thailand for the last three years or so, just couldn't handle it. She only yelled at the driver twice. I think these were the two most life threatening situations.

This was our minivan ride, 230km to Sarat Thani, then another 100km onwards to Don Sak to the ferry. The driver was mental. It's not like I haven't experienced taxis in Paris before, or the traffic of Naples in Italy, but this was something different. Most travellers have horror stories of being driven somewhere. I think this one is mine. He was one of those drivers who couldn't maintain a steady foot on the accelerator, so in say a 60 zone, we would vary between 55 and 70 when he was trying to go 60. Speed up, take foot off, slow down, speed up. Constant lurching. How people drive like that? Are they the ones the whinge the most about the poor fuel effeciency of their vehicles? Mrs South Africa said he wasn't particularly fast, just absolutely erratic and breaking the so called unwritten road rules. We have road rules in Australia, they do in Thailand too, just no-one obeys them. But this guy was flaunting even the unwritten road rules. On a highway, at over 100km/h, he tries, I repeat, tries, to overtake a car, by mounting the minivan onto the traffic island. At 100km/h! Mrs South Africa screamed at him, something along the lines of the Australian eqiuvilant of "you're a bloody idiot mate!". As I said, I wasn't looking, but when she screamed it was hard not to look. For all that, he only had one accident. He drove over a moveable metal barricade. I think I learnt some Thai swear words.

At some bizare stopping place where the male toilet consistent of nothing more than an wall out in the open, thankfully one did have to pay for the privelige of using this toilet. Odd to pay A8 cents to walk around the back of the girl's toilet building and piss on the wall. May as well of pissed on a nearby tree. Male toilets here are a little odd. They are almost always in the open, and if not, they are in an open room. Just different really. Anyway, my opening sentence to this para was so not a proper sentence. So in this bizarre place, I was told to swap vans. My luggage was dumped on the muddy ground and my first van departed. Ok. Hope Mrs South Africa made it safely to Krabi. Travel here is odd. In Australia, you get a ticket, and it matches the destination written on the bus. Here, you get a ticket, but you surrender it to your first driver, all your proof gone. I had two more transfers to make, and no ticket as such. I don't know why the first driver kept it, he couldn't read it, obviously unable to read English (not that there is anything wrong with not being able to read English!). My new driver of minivan number two was so much better. He drove normally, quick, but safely. We sped through the Thai countryside, he beeped at every vehicle possible to get out of his way. But no crazy overtaking moves or swerving, or inconsistent speeds.

We arrived to Surat Thani, which Lonely Planet describes as nothing more than a transport hub, with nothing for tourists to see. We sat in some dingy little office, but this is strange, we had waited almost an hour before I noticed how disgusting dingy it was. You get used to the grossness of Asia quickly it seems. One by one we met with the tour agent there, who busied himself trying to upsell our ferry tickets to Ko Samui with transfers, accommodation and onward journies. I booked a transfer, for 100 baht (A$3), which was excellent value, a minivan to my accomodation of choice on the island. I also booked an open ended ferry ticket and bus to Bangkok combo for 500 baht (A$17), but I could have got that about 100 Baht cheaper here on the island.

I commented in yesterday's blog a little about prices of things, and what people earnt. It is obviously much more complex than I made it sound. Some things are cheap, like transport, as you can see. But other things are the same cost as in Australia, for instance sunblock is the same as in Australia. Muesli bars too. Mrs South Africa, who teaches ESL in Chang Mai was holidaying in Phuket, and said it is so expensive in PKT. A 300 baht (A$10) meal in PKT, which is pretty average, costs a mere 65 Baht (A$2) in Chang Mai. A good coffee in PKT, 80 baht, in Chang Mai just 25 baht. Whilst Karn said Thai ppl earn between 5000 and 6000 baht per month, Mrs South Africa, being a westerner, earnt 40,000 baht per month. This was Mrs South Africa's first visit back to Phuket, she was working here originally but fled in the aftermath of the tsunami. I don't think she enjoyed coming back much. She said it was sad to visit her town she had lived in and just see vacant land where people she knew used to own shops. One more thing on my little diversion, I mentioned once there were no slum or shanty like areas in Phuket province that we could see. I found one last night, behind a fence, obscured from view from the street, but because I was in a coach I could see over the fence. It wasn't too bad, but still hidden from tourists.

So, the ferry. A storm had come in, fairly unexpectantly. The seas were rough, the waves visibly huge. The boat lurched up and down the waves. People were throwing up everywhere. Brad said I was very green. Well, that was Easter this year, coming back from Kangaroo Island, with a six metre swell. I hadn't taken seasickness tablets, I didn't know it I needed them. Apparently I did. But today, in Thailand, I hadn't taken them. When Andrew and I took them earlier in the week it made us both so very, very tired. I didn't want that. A storm came in as we drove in the coach with cracked windows (yep, pretty much every single window in this coach was cracked with dozens of cracks) from Surat Thani to the ferry. But can the Gulf of Thailand rival Backstairs Passage. No. The sea was still flat. The only time I ever felt even mildly seasick was each time I stopped reading my novel and wondered if I felt seasick. And I would, mildly. Then I would go back to reading and feel fine again.

Ms California had said at the start of the trip in the minivan that she had friends make the same trip I was making a couple of days ago. I was told I would arrive in Ko Samui about 2pm. She said her friends were told different, but not too dissimilar, but they ended up spending the night in Surat Thani because the bus missed the ferry. Oh. But obviously, it was all good, although it was 6pm before I reached where I was staying in Ko Samui. I had chosen a guest house that was cheap, on the recommendation of the minivan driver here, who no doubt scored a commission for this advice. I looked through my Lonely Planet guide, trying to find some kind of backpackers place, because they are cheap, but also because they are so good for meeting other travellers. I didn't want to stay in a hotel, because then I wouldn't meet anyone else! But there seemed little of that here, mostly hotels and guesthouses. The one I chose from the guide turned out to be a far bit more expensive, and maybe not worth it since I was now travelling alone. It was a beachfront bungalow, the complex was beachfront, but not the bungalow. The driver took me to another guesthouse on the other side of the road, a little away from the beach. It was a new place, queen bed with new furniture and a balcony, and an odd little bathroom. I say odd, because it just was. Very, very basic, western toilet, not a squat or anything, but the shower is... odd. The heater is on the wall, there is no shower screen, and the floor doesn't slope or anything. It's like a normal room, but with a toilet and a shower head on the wall. Just odd.

I spent 550 baht for one nights accommodation. The bungalow with beach access would have cost 800 baht. After settling my stuff in the room, I went out for tea, and a walk along the beach. I regretted my saving of 250 baht by choosing my non-beachfront accom. Thai ppl have a very different opinion of the beach than Aussies. We love the beach, we build our towns and houses around them. In a beachside town, we have an beach esplanade, and gardens and open air eating places line the esplanade and beach. But here? There was no public access to the beach, or so it seemed. The only way to access the beach was by one of the many hotels that lined it, so actually, without that booking you couldn't. So despite walking maybe 2kms along the main road, I could smell the sea, but couldn't see it or access it. Thai people don't really seem to like the beach, but they know us westerners do so the hotels cater for it. I cursed my money saving decision, and walked back to the hotel. And then I found the only, public access road the beach, directly opposite my hotel. Well durgh Jeremy. I walked the length of the beach, yay, it was so nice, and I snuck back through some hotel to the main street again, past a Thai sign that no doubt prohibited people from using the hotel as a shortcut to the beach.

Tomorrow night is the Full Moon Party here, well, on the next island over. These are like world famous, I really should go, but I have no intention of going by myself. I would go if I was in a backpackers, cos I would meet other people. I might meet some ppl on tomorrow's tour. Dunno. Wait and see.

I'm going on a snorkelling tour tomorrow, yay! After Ko Samui there will be no more sea, so I thought I had better get some snorkelling in. The tour is out into the marine national park that was the inspiration for "The Beach" setting, although the dumb movie version was filmed on the Phuket side of Thailand. Pickup is at 6.30am... oh how I will hate that bit. I feel lonely here in the guesthouse room by myself, in future I will try much harder to find real backpackers accommodation. Goodnight. Sweet dreams.

Chinese Water Torture

2006-10-08T23:36:00.000+09:30

I wonder what it was like before. Before the mobile phone tower, satellite tv, electricity, concrete and the tourists. A sea gypsy village, a floating village, on stilts, out in the middle of a marine national park. Perched on the edge of an incredibly tall rockface, on a tidal mudflat. A network of passageways and laneways between these shanty type houses, mostly wood and corrugated iron, and some a little more sturdier. Once a fishing village, Koh Pannyi, an illegal settlement in Phang Nga Bay. Originally settled about one hundred and seventy years ago I think, obviously well before any marine national park had been declared. Now dependant upon the passing tourist boats, the little laneways lined with shops selling the usual shit. Got lost wandering around with a NZ girl and an English girl, as we explored and took some interesting photos. Felt like we were intruding on their life. But then the tourism is their life now. Football field was a nice touch.

The Generation X'ers are known to be cynical. So treat me with compassion, with this blog entry herewith.

James Bond Island. I didn't want to go there, it was just part of the tour to the sea gypsy village. So it was just incredibly lame. Another scheme to remove money from tourist's wallets and put them in local's pockets. Why would I want to go to an island, once used in a movie, and if not ruined then, ruined later with the tourist trade. We were welcomed by a whole line of longtail boats lined up on the beach. And a queue, to pay the 200 Baht entry fee to the marine national park. Oh goody. The beach was lined with shops selling the usual shit. Typical. And tourists, lots of Japanese, all taking exactly the same photo. All with the James Bond Island sign in the background, or trying out visual illiusion photos holding a rock obelisk like formation with their hand, or imitating it with their finger. Lame lame lame. Can't help thinking the island would be a lot better off if people stayed on the mainland, had their photo taken against a green screen and were photoshopped into the standard island background. It is possible for people to take too many photos of exactly the same thing I think.

We walked up to the 'lookout' which was just a path to another tourist drop-off point, a pier. We boarded our longtail boat here. The tour guide led the way, "okay, step over that danger sign, just ignore it, step over the safety barricade, walk down to the end of the pier, yep, the pier that is only half there. Yeah, yeah, half of it blew away in a storm, it is okay, it is just up there washed up on the beach. Come on, come on, we have another twenty minutes of Chinese water torture awaiting you in the longtail boat. Climbing down the stairs to the boat, it was obvious why the pier was closed. Not only was a shelter and plenty of the barricades missing, so were plenty of the pylons. Oh, most were still there, granted, but the tops weren't connected to the bottoms of them. And none of it seemed too straight. For those of you who like fishing, snorkelling or diving, think Rapid Bay jetty when it was closed, only worse.

The Chinese water torture, I hear you ask? Could it be possible to design a boat any better to collect water from outside the boat and spray it into people's faces in the boat, unrelentlessly? Twenty minutes of water spray in your face, we were soaking. Oh, on the bus on the way up, the guide had only told us like five times, not to worry, he was prepared in case it rained, with plastic bags for our stuff and ponchos. But did he mention the constant soaking in the longtail boat? I don't think so! There was clear plastic attached to the side of the boat, like those pergola pvc blinds we have, but was there any rope or any other means to actually hold it up? No! Could we see the beautiful surroundings we were going through? The mangroves? The mountains? No! Who can see when we are being constantly splashed in our faces? We could have acheived the same thing by standing in a pool and throwing water in each other's faces unrelentlessly. But I can say the ride back towards shore wasn't unpleasant, the seas had calmed and by going with the waves minimal water sprayed into the boat. Phew.

I think I ruined my own day with my cynacism, until it was made good by visiting the sea gypsy village, that I really enjoyed. The longtail boat ride with the Chinese water torture and the overpopulated James Bond Island were so bad. But I already pleaded mercy for that with my Generation X'ers comment. You can't punish me for that.

And I dramatized the bit about the pier. Oh, the condition of the pier was all true, but there were no warning signs, just someone had removed one or the barricade railings from the "safe" end of the pier and nailed it across the balustrade where the dangerous part started. So no safety signs, just lots of dumb people climbing over the blockage.

Oh btw, in the photos, we back to the Monkey Temple we visited on the canoeing day. So I took one more photo, an ironic one. I told you I thought it was more of a money making temple than a Buddhist temple, didn't I?

ATV

2006-10-08T23:06:00.000+09:30

I fixed the ATV photos. Sorry, no time to fix last time. ATV's was Andrew's fav thing we did. Cool.

My updated travel plans

2006-10-06T13:27:00.000+09:30

As promised, an updated map. Maybe two nights in Ko Samui (Sat 7th and Sun 8th), maybe one or two at River Kwai, then hopefully a day train to Chang Mai.

I'm making good...

2006-10-06T13:26:00.001+09:30

So I am making good on my take-a-week-to-read-a-novel. Reading The Beach now, yeah, I know, is that lame? I don't think so. It's not like I went to the Phi-Phi Island where they filmed the movie. The movie, btw, sucked. The book was fantastic, the movie so very lame, only vaguely and superficially touching on the real themes of the novel. I completely forgot to share a funny story from day 1, when we thought we would check out the local tour agent to compare prices to our tour agent we booked the accommodation through, who was meeting us at the hotel. Yeah, so I said all this, it paid off, they were scamming us. So, like I said, something to compare prices with. Remember, it was day 1, so we just grabbed a few typical things. Phi-Phi Island, everyone goes there, made famous by the aforementioned lame-o movie. Except, you know me, never good at pronouncing foreign language stuff, even if it has beenn transliterated into English for me. So I walked in, and said to Karn, as we later learnt she was, "Price for Phi-Phi Island?", except I mispronounced it (it's Pee-Pee not Fee-Fee). Karn looked shocked. Loosely speaking, I had just asked a tour agent for vagina. Like seriously, this is Thailand, there is plenty to be found, both real and fake, but a tour agent isn't really the appropriate place to ask. How did I get to talking about this?

Anyway, reading The Beach now. Read it years ago, maybe 2002, after finding it on Miriam's bookshelf. Never had any desire to travel to Asia, but after this book, the seed was planted. I only recalled this a couple of weeks ago. This book was the catalyst to travelling to Thailand. I don't often read novels twice, unlike movies, I do recall what happens in novels (well, when I read it anyway). But this was such a good one, I even went and bought it for my holiday. Again, I don't often buy novels, reserved only for 5 star novels (I think this makes it my second novel, I have another ex library book I bought for like $2 after I had borrowed it and each page fell out as I read it, it was ok). Regardless, this blog entry is just a long way of getting to the point, I like this quote on page 51, it is succinct:

Thais, or South-East Asians in general, make eerily convincing transvestites. Their slight builds and smooth faces are a recipe for success.
I saw a particularly stunning transvestite as I waited under the palm tree. His silicone breasts were perfectly formed and he had hips to die for. The only thing to betray his gender was his gold dress - a bit too showy to be worn by a Thai girl on a stroll down Chaweng.

No need to go on about it, I hear you, I just thought it captured it well.

20 times less than you

2006-10-06T13:26:00.000+09:30

So you wonder how much some of these things we are doing are costing? The canoeing was the most expensive, at 2400 Baht I think, maybe only 1500 Baht we paid, but 2400 Baht is A$85. The white water rafting was 1100 Baht (A$40), the ATV thing similar. Today we go on a cruise by long tail boat to see a sea gypsy village, a village built on stilts out in Phang Nga bay, that one is 600 Baht (A$21). A cheap Thai food meal would work out to be A$5 with rice and a beer. Andrew is buying rip-off t-shirts for no more than A$5 and rip-off dvd's for A$2. Things are cheap at the moment, as there are not many tourists around. September is one of the lowest months of the year.

We chatted to Karn for like half an hour the other day. We found out that Thais typically earn around 5000 to 6000 Baht per month, in a strict currency exhange that is about 20 times less than our typical earnings. Things are much cheaper here, but still not that much cheaper for them. Maybe they really earn 3 to 5 times less than us in terms of their cost of living (by my crude calculation method). Most live poorly, it isn't often that we see really nice or large homes, most being small and humble. Most cars are only two to three years old, presumably replacements after the tsunami, but then there are photos around of the tsunami damage, and the wrecked cars in that seem just as new. Most of the cars here are utes rather than sedans. Motorbikes outnumber cars.

Karn lives ten minutes walk from her office. She grew up the city of Trang, about 150km south east of Phuket. She returns there in September when tourists are slow, to stay with family. She, like many Thais perhaps, doesn't like the beach.

Attention Seeking?

2006-10-06T13:23:00.000+09:30

Camera is broken? Or just attention seeking? Turn the camera on, and it takes non-stop photos. I hear you, don't worry, your telling me it is on a continuous setting, aren't you? I think you are wrong. The timing between shots is apparently random, and it is sensitive to light. So I take one photo, it takes twenty. Twenty blurry photos. It's madness.

The Third Brother

2006-10-06T13:21:00.000+09:30

I'm not sure if there is much to say anymore. It is Thursday, on Saturday morning we leave. Andrew to KL then home, me onwards towards Chang Mai in the north. I have changed my plans a little now. Read that as made some plans. That map on my blog was just a diversion. Time for a new map I think. Going to island of Ko Samui. Have booked a minivan & ferry combo for 500 Baht (about A$17) with Karn. Could have got it cheaper, maybe $3-4, if I went into Phuket to get a coach. But why bother? I just want to get out of here I think. Although Ka Samui may be more of the same as Phuket, being another very tourist spot. Pick up from hotel same time as Andrew's pick up for the airport. 7.30am, an early start. We did a couple of early start tours at the beginning of the week, but grew tired of the early mornings. We don't do them anymore. Except perhaps on Saturday when we leave, that we can't easily avoid. Will be in Ko Samui by 2pm, maybe 150 to 200km away to the north west. Will be staying in Hat Chaweng (Hat means beach).

In 1971 two tourists arrived on Thailand's third largest island via a coconut boat from Bangkok and stumbled upon paradise - white sand beaches with palms blowing in the wind; clear green seas sparkling in the sunlight with ripples made for floating; a picture perfect background of lush green hills and rich brown roads interspersed with rough wooden huts." - Lonely Planet

I think I am over Phuket now. Btw farang just means westerner, no more. My novel just seemed to use it in a derogatory way. I have finished the novel. Is this a new record for me? Taking a week to read a novel? Why so long?

The Third Brother
By Nick McDonell
4 stars

I do this with every novel I read, to help me remember, so my life isn't forgotten.

I like this book because it was set half in Thailand, but the main character was stuck there, he couldn't move on. I liked it, it was chilling, he couldn't move on. There was no where for him to go. No one to go with, they were all gone. And I liked how the book ended, so although I think it unlikely, if you want to read this book, don't read the following quote from page 267:

What I couldn't take were Harrison's new pictures. A photo essay about the yaa baa life in Bangkok. They were very ordinary, actually, except for the access. Just simple pictures of stoned young Thais, and some mundane shots from inside a factory. The images looked almost serene, and seeing them made me feel like a liar. Maybe I made the whole thing up. I feel like I've been telling the same stories again and again, lying. That is part of why I was so quiet this semester. I am very tired of lying.

    Lyle told me that he saw our mother kill our father and herself before the house burned down. Before he burned it down. But I don't know if I believed him. He wasn't killed in the 9/11 attack. He jumped off the roof. He killed himself. I didn't believe him and went to get water, and when I came back, he had jumped off the roof. Maybe if I beleived him it would have been different, but you are supposed to tell people the truth, right? You can't just go along with whatever lies they make up. Otherwise you can never live right.
    Lyle told me her burned down the house because of what he saw. So I wouldn't have to see. I'm telling you so we won't forget. And who else would I tell? Anyway, you should know, he blamed the fire on you, Brother.

    I'm leaving. That's what my parents would have done, and what Tweety did, and what our brother Lyle would say to do. I'm walking out through the snow to the highway just beyond campus and I am walking back into the world. I am walking across the highway, just as I am, and getting out. Even if I see a girl, holding a baby, flying down the snowy highway on her motorcycle.

    I just can't beleive, of all people in the world, I'm telling this story to you.

Andrew loved it. Me not so much.

2006-10-06T13:18:00.000+09:30

Blah. We went on a ATV tour yesterday. Nothing to say. Nothing worth saying perhaps. Andrew loved it. Me not so much. It wasn't through a national park at all, just around a small dirt circuit. Bah.

All good

2006-10-04T14:18:00.000+09:30

Hi mum. All good.

Finally the rain has stopped. Humidity back and blue skies back. Going ATV'ing in nat. park today in hills.

Please if you visit leave a comment, even if it's just "bah I hate you". Ta.

Australians here are funny. Had 4 x 20 year old's yesterday. (I'm just blahing to use my pre-paid internet time). One girl, after the boy said something about how good the Asian food was the night before, said, "I don't see what the big deal is anyway, it's not like we are in Asia". Um, ok, way to make the whole van load of people have a really good laugh. We think she thought Asia was a country far far away. Same girl later near hotel, "I think I'm going to get my hair cut and blow dryed. Do you think they wash it too?" Um, yes, why else would they need to blow dry? Bimbo-ness aside, they were very cool. As was Russian with his Ukranian wife. Very funny, but not bimbo. Wife couldn't speak English, but very funny too. No prostitutes on this tour, nice.

Lots of Aussies here at moment, school holidays. Lots and lots of Japanese at shows etc, Aussies in bars. Russians in Dec and Jan. The odd NZ'er. Lots of Swiss or Germans.

Oh I think the Aussies who come here just to get drunk, smoke, do drugs and buy rip-offs, with no cultural respect, farangs, they are called. I think, from use of word in my novel, context etc. Not googled to check though.

Farewell.

2006-10-04T13:58:00.000+09:30

Met up with Chris and Bre for one last time, they going home tomorrow which it today now. Zoom zoom. They have both been sick for last three days, puking and doctor etc. But they both feeling better now I think. For their last night though, we decided to eat some westerner food and they bid their farewell to some of the friends they have made here, the girl running the Aussie bar in that place whereever in Bang La and her sis down the road.

I will miss they, them are both v cool. Enjoyed getting to know them. Like how much they respect Thai's and their culture. They have been here 18 days, and going home broke. We shall miss their company and laughs.

Normally 45 minutes take, today only 20. Water fast.

2006-10-04T13:55:00.000+09:30

"Normally, the white water rafting would last 45 minutes. But there is so much water, and it is flowing so fast, it will only take 20 minutes today." Oh. Okay. "And normally, you start on level 1 or 2 and built up to level 4. Today, you start on level 3, maybe level 4." A couple of minutes in, our guide shouted out "level 6!", but I think he was joking. Although when the four rafts would come together for a brief regain your breath opportunity, from the discussion between the guides, not that we could understand their language, but their body language yes, this was rough waters today. I think it has rained every day since we got here, and today there was a lot of rain, although not unexpected given it is almost the wettest season here in Thailand. Normally they release a dam to increase the flow for the rafting, but today the dam was overflowing.

The safety instructions were brief, and I can't imagine the quick talk would suffice in Australia as sufficient preparation. But here in Thailand, apparently it does. So because I didn't have a safety instructor terrifying me about repurcussions of this or that, I think I kinda suspended the dangers in my head as well. I think in our 5km rafting there was only a couple of panics, but it was all fun. Once, whilst approaching a big rock on my side, I retreated down into the raft, according to our brief instructions. "Get up, get up, you paddle!" Oh. Later, "get down! down!" as we passed under tree branches on the river bank. Ouch, but not so much as I perhaps expected.

We both really enjoyed the white water rafting in the rain, neither of us having done it before. I think I felt comfortable with it and not scared because of the canoeing and kayaking I have done. So I just wanted to have fun and paddle hard. We had seen groups pass down the river already, with a guide on each of end of the raft and the four occupants not paddling at all. Perhaps they thought they didn't need to go any faster. We paddled.

After our first set of rapids, we were a bit bewildered. Here was another dam, perhaps a metre something high, and it seemed like the guides were going to take us down over it. I couldn't imagine it, and thought it looked really stupid to do, but they seemed intent. But then they stopped the raft and told us to climb out and over and down to meet the raft. Phew. I think Andrew thought all the same thoughts.

The guides were pretty funny. They were young, and like a group of school boys or something. They were obviously paying each other out, to us as well, and making constant jokes. One guy dacked another in front of the Aussie girls. Very funny to watch them relate to each other.

When we picked this particularly rafting tour company, we chose it because it involved several hours of rafting. Other tours seemed to involve many many things, like a visit to monkey caves, elephant trekking, a photo here, a photo there, this and that, each for a couple minutes and no more. No, we wanted to actually go rafting. But then our day turned into this anyway. We had decided not to take up the elephant option, then discovered we had to sit and wait whilst the others did it. But it turned out good, we sat and talked to the tour guide for half an hour. Very interesting. So, Thai's work a six day working week, unless working with the Govt, only five days then. Between eight and twelve hours per day. And annual leave of maybe six days a year if they are lucky, and perhaps not in one block. After maybe four or five years, they get maybe ten days leave. We talked about politics too, the lack of an apparent police presence in Thailand, oh and interesting stuff about names. They all have a nickname, usually only four or five letters long, and an offical name, with a meaning. Their official names are determined by what day of the week they are born, whether in the morning or afternoon or night and so on.

We walked up to a waterfall to swim, but there was too much water. These places were amazing in the mountains, just so beautiful, almost surreal. But alas, no photos, a day spent wet. We stopped by a monkey cave temple thing. The guide referred to Andrew as 'monkey boy' because of his haircut, being similar to monkies. The meal we ate was of monkey soup, monkey drumsticks, snake sweet and sour, crocodile egg etc etc, or so she told us. These Thai people are so funny, it's great!

Turns out Bre and Chris went to the same monkey cave. Dressing appropriately is considered good. I took photos, as you can see, and shouldn't have. But you wonder if a temple like this one is for making money and nothing else. Chris and Bre were deemed to be dressed appopriately (ie covered up) because they were wearing plastic ponchos, albeit clear ones. Ridiculous? Yup.

Ben would be proud!

2006-10-04T13:52:00.000+09:30

I like this song at the dub's cafe at the mo. They don't know what it is called, but I think I heard it in our duf-duf tuk tuk the other night. Its dance. I like.

May-na-may-na-may
Fles-re-blaze
No-ma-nay
Pee-ma-flesh

I don't think I have successfully picked up the words to google it though.

Whoever awards the TTA is either:

2006-10-04T13:51:00.000+09:30

Whoever awards the Thailand Tourism Awards is either:
a) A government official who loves to see lots of tourists held captive transferring money from their wallets to locals' wallets by whatever means possible
b) A government official who loves to see lots of tourists in one spot with lots of pretty lights and elephants (and men dressed as women but not prostitutes)
c) A tourism operator who loves all of the above

Phuket FantaSea... Winner of the 2005 Thailand Tourism Awards. Mmm. And how is that measured? Is it by holding tourists captive and trying to sell them "quality souveneirs"? Then releasing them into another captive area and trying all over again? And a third time? If so I can see why this place won the award...

Phuket FantaSea, a cultural theme park. Dinner included. Yeah, our transfer from the hotel managed to get us there early, we were like the first people there. How totally boring to be the first people in a theme park. And what exactly were we meant to do for the three hours before the theatre show started? Eat tea, yes, and explore some retardly dumb theme park? Do they take us for idiots? I think I felt manipulated as a tourist. We were held captive in this "theme park" to spend our money on various aspects of "authentic Thai culture". What rubbish. This place was over-the-top fake and superficial. It was clear many others were as bored as we were. Even the Thai people working there seem bored. We took photos of ourselves being bored to amuse ourselves, which was quite amusing.

I would have to say, this bit of the night reminded me a little of churches in Australia. Bear with me on this one. So this tourist operator thinks tourists want to see the Thai culture, so they create some superficial, shiny, bright theme park to exhibit the best bits of their culture, apparently the perfect solution to the need of tourists. But it is so ridiculously happy and false the tourists don't take it even slightly seriously, or have any fun there whatsoever because it completely misses the point of what their need was (to see authentic Thai culture). The tourist operator has thrown so much money and people into this venture to create a happy, bright, busy and vibrant place, safe for tourists to see their culture, but it is so superficial very few tourists actually enjoy it. A few love it, but most hate it. See my point? You can put the rest of the analogy together. Now that I have finished throwing rotten fruit at this particular tourist venture, those of you who want to, can now take your turn at throwing rotten fruit at me for daring to critize churches.

The theatre show itself was good, I think. I missed the point of the story almost entirely, and Andrew understood the whole story and explained it to me at the end. The show reminded me of the opening of the Adelaide Festival earlier this year. There, I understood the story and loved it, and Andrew understood little of it and hated it. The roles were reversed this time. I think I would have liked tonight's show more if I understood a little of the significance of some of the stuff going on, but I had none. Lots of costumes, dancing, elephants doing dumb tricks and lasers. Andrew laughed at me cos he knew I was hating it. Sorry no photos of it, we were specifically told no photos or V.D.O. (as they say here), and when asked if I had either I replied no. Then I got frisked revealing one phone and one camera. I had no intention of using them, I just didn't want to hand them over to be held by some dodgy tourist operator. So I had to hand them over. We were then led into captive area number two, where we could now pay to have our photos taken with a dozen different costume people or elephants. No thank you, do you think we are stupid?

If you want to check it out a little you go to the website www.phuket-fantasea.com, but again, I haven't checked this and wouldn't bother to anyway. Apparently you haven't seen Phuket until you have seen this show, but I would contest that. We spent 1500 Baht on it, roughly A$50, if I went again, which I never would, I would only to the theatre show and not the dinner as well. The food was shit, it felt like some dumb Christmas show gone wrong, or the most boring work convention you have ever been to. The decorations were so false... aah I have nothing more to say.

Debate still goes on...

2006-10-04T13:46:00.000+09:30

Photo from our first night here. Debate still goes on as to whether she is a pro or not. Alas, she was fun, and shy last night when we went again. But she still played Connect 4 with us again, and some other game. Very fun. Where is Tash when games are being played? Where are you? You missing J play games? ha!

Want to know? Refer page 86.

2006-10-04T13:45:00.000+09:30

This is a photo from our first night here, when we played Connect 4 with the bar girl. She was very good, and very fun to play with. Andrew wasn't quite so good at playing. But I don't want to beat up on him. I hope I'm not being unfair to him in these blogs. He did read it the other day and didn't complain about mistreatment. Oh, btw, for those of ignorant disposition, read bar girl as prostitute.

Connect 4 does seem popular here, we saw it in the restuarant we ate in last night at local Karon Beach. But no prostitues this time, just kids playing with the complimentary restaurant ones.

So page 86, heh? I have brought with me some novels to read (how can I survive life without reading?). They are all set in Thailand, cos that's fun when in Thailand. I read some last night, for the first time since the short plane trip from KL to Phuket. Had I not given up reading during the descent, and kept reading just a mere three more pages, my first encounter (and can I assure you the only encounter, not having any more thanks!) with that thing I refused to blog about on our first night here in PKT would have been in my novel, and not first hand. That would have helped. For reference, for those of you who can handle the truth, refer to "The Third Brother" by Nick McDonell, pages 86 and 87. Although our reaction was different to the character Mike, we were more like "ooh-kaay, that's just odd, but whatever". And yes mum your library has a copy of the book, and no you can't go check it out. It's here at the moment in it's homeland. Is that naughty? To let novels see their cultural origins first hand?

Dof-dof tuk-tuk

2006-10-04T13:41:00.001+09:30

Here is photo of the hotted up tuk-tuk from the other day whenever that was.

She didn't look pleased to see us. Something was wrong.

2006-10-04T13:41:00.000+09:30

She didn't look pleased to see us. Something was wrong. When we came back the other day after our first visit, she was very pleased to see us. But today, there was something there in her eyes. We realised later what, she, our agent we booked our tours through, was fearful we were back to complain or demand a refund for our canoe trip yesterday, as the weather in Phuket was rain, rain and more rain, and the open sea was rough. But off the coast in our sheltered bay it barely rained at all, and was even sunny sometimes, and relatively calm. A look of relief came over her face upon understanding this.

"Karn. That my name. Karn," she told us when we booked the canoe trip with her. Her office in the street is about ten minutes walk from our hotel. Sure, we only have to pass another ten people offering us tours on the way, but we like her. She is very nice, always polite, gives us good prices (compared to what else we have seen) and her recommendation to pick the particular tour operator we did paid off, that tour was excellent (I love eco-friendly, sustainable tourism stuff. fyi their website was www.seacavecanoe.com, but I haven't checked that website at all). She is so short, she looks ridiculous standing next to Andrew. It was her birthday today.

It's hard to imagine. She sits in this little shop for twelve hours a day, from 10am until 10pm (the standard shopping hours here). Her shop is open seven days a week, I wonder if someone else helps her so she can have time off? Her son, I think, comes in after school and plays on the computer. Not that I think her son was really a girl, that's not what I meant. Those kinda thoughts are reserved for the lady who served us our tea last night. Or the ladies in the bars. We think she only sold two tours in the one and half days between our second and third visit, but we were pleased to see she had sold two more in the few hours between this morning when we booked a couple of tours and when we took Bre and Chris there to book a tour.

Bre (not spelled Bri after all) and Chris are coming for lunch. If you don't want to hear about bowel movements quick - cover your eyes! They cancelled their tour yesterday because they were so sick after what they ate at the markets. Both of them. They "exploded", they said, and had to share the same toilet at pretty much the same time. How odd, Andrew and I had mild, I so emphasize mild, the D word. But nothing really, I can't overemphasize how mild it was. Over, done, nothing particularly out of the ordinary, all good after that. Never even knew it was coming. No more bowel talk, you got a deal there.

"I think that clock has stopped, it can't be only just seven minutes gone."

2006-10-04T13:39:00.000+09:30

We were using the hotel gym, why not? After seven minutes I was done. Like this is always my gym experiences. I'm bored by them. I feel like a mouse on a wheel. Why spend ten minutes walking on some dumb machine when you can spend thirty minutes walking outside seeing something and breathing the fresh air, rather than watching fitness motivation dvd's. "Girls love it, and I only spend two hours a day in the gym. Oh don't worry, not all at once." That's not motivating! That's discouraging. Bah, I'm just not gym material. I left Andrew to it, he loves it, that's cool.

Andrew just came back to the room, thirty five minutes he spent on that walkie thing. I just can't do that. What does my brain do for those thirty-five minutes? I think I would rather some creative mind exercise...

Monday I think

"This medication may cause drowsiness"

2006-10-01T22:10:00.000+09:30

"This medication may cause drowsiness". Yup, it most certainly did! We awoke to another wet morning, with rough seas. We had an hour or so boat trip for our canoe day, so we took some motion sickness tablets, just in case. Oh my god, it made us so ridiculously drowsy. But we didn't ever feel sick, not that the seas were rough as the area we were travelling through is relatively sheltered, but we ate a huge meal on the moving boat as well, and that was all good. I think it was worth taking, I think so from Brad's description of how green I was on the KI ferry 6 metre swell back at Easter. Although I would still like to have seen a photo or a PMS colour reading of how green I was.

The canoeing was so good, we were taken out into a Marine Park in Ao Phang Nga (Phang Nga Bay), to a couple of different islands with caves. The bay was so beautiful, and the guide said on every tour there is an Australian (well durggh), but they always contest their claim that this is part of the world's biggest reef, stretching to China? I dunno, not sure I really understood, but suppossedly much larger than the Great Barrier Reef, but without the sense of continuity because of all the islands. Someone want to Google that for me?

The caves, they were so amazing, our guides led us through narrow passages or caves into huge "rooms", apparently collapsed caves open to the sky. So beautiful, amazingly quiet with just a few bird sounds. In the caves one could sometimes here waves crashing through blow holes. "In this cave, adbsolutely no clap, not funny", this cave being full of bats. Oh my goodness, how small they were!

We didn't need to paddle, the guide doing that for us. Kinda felt lazy for that, they were inflatable canoes which I asked if they were easier or harder to paddle than fibreglass canoes, much harder. He did well though, and took a photo of us with Andrew pretending to paddle.

The tour guides were good, with a good understanding of the tides and which caves we would be able to access, and which caves we could pass through without hitting stagelites or those others ones staga-whatevers.

Lunch was so fantastic, a local fisherman stopped by to sell his catch to the tour crew, a catfish and some crabs. They were so delicious! We had such a good lunch, how I love Thai food!! I don't like double explamation points, but that statement was worthy of one. Later they prepared coconuts for us to drink, so big and sweet. After drinking the coconut milk, we scraped out the flesh of the coconut, so sweet! There was fruit on hand all day, green sweet mandarins, and these lychee type things, but also bananas. I am so loving their bananas here! The tour guide was very clear to everyone on the tour, about twelve people, that the bananas should be left for the four Australians since ours are so rare at the moment. There were three Swiss guys there, one with his hired lady friend. A bit odd that, the need to hire a girl for the week or so one is holidaying there. Kinda degrading to oneself don't you think. They didn't understand each other's language at all, this much was clear. The other two Swiss guys seemed to find some amusement in it all.

On the return trip, we stopped by an island resort for a bit of beach time. We slept, no swimming or canoeing. We just couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.

The tour team were very interesting. Led by a German guy, the rest being locals. We gave one a lift home in our car back to the hotel. The German guy was cool, he originally came here in 1972, to Patong, when it was a small fishing village. He returned in 1984 I think, and tried to work here, but was taxed very heavily by the Thai government so returned to Europe. He came back a couple of years later, and hasn't been back to Europe since. His mother came out a few years ago, to see him one last time before she died. She came back for a second and a third viewing too. Then she came out to live here, the tropics being ideal for her arthritis and a couple of other conditions.

Saturday. I think. Maybe.

2006-10-01T22:09:00.000+09:30

My bruised ribs have taken a beating today. Firstly, we swam in the pool, in beautiful heavy rain. Ouch. Not the rain, the swimming movement. Then, later, a Thai Massage, full body. Ouch. Like that wasn't enough to keep the aching going a couple more days, we decided to go for a quick swim in the sea. No, we didn't have our bathers. What we had would suffice. The water was so warm and so strong, both the crashing waves and the undertow. Woah. For all you people who have just gone into "mother mode", no I don't have fractured ribs. I got them X-rayed on Wednesday afternoon before leaving under my doctor's precaution. Alex, you would be proud, remniscent of that swim on Eyre Pen, I didn't really want to swim. It was warm, I knew it would be, but it was overcast and windy. The sea swim was our favourite part of the day. Followed closely by the local market we visited at night. We met up with Bri and Chris, and a couple of New Zealanders they met at their hotel and hired a hotted up tuk tuk for the journey to the night market near Phuket Town. Very interesting, obviously a market for locals and not tourists. We could tell that from how low the tarps had been slung across the walkways between the stalls, for both Andrew and I it was very difficult to dodge the wet tarps, ropes and electrical cables at nose height. The food too was obviously not catered to tourists, and the stalls weren't full of rip-off clothes marketed towards Australians. Which by the way, Phuket is full of Aussies, it's like Au's new Bali. Some hotels do bomb checks on incoming cars, and Bang La Road, the local night club strip in Sarong Beach is closed to traffic each night and manned with police - to minimise the risk of car bombs. Anyway, the night market, the food was just fascinating, to see it being prepared. I tried a beef kebab kind of thing, oh it was sooo good. Later, I braved to buy a couple of rice balls as a snack. 10 Baht each, or 30 baht prepared. Oh, ok, I'll be brave, I'll give it a go. I love the Thai people, always so friendly and fun. They were keen for me to try it. So they took the cooked rice balls, crushed them, and added in cooked onion, some spring onion roasted cashews with some seasoning, then, 'girl enthusiastic for tourist to try Thai food' says to 'girl not so enthusiastic but actually preparing the food', "no no, he needs the chilli too!". Girl not so enthusiastic looks at me questioningly. "Chilli, is hot", and hesitantly adds a little chilli. Girl enthusiastic ensures full amount is added. I should have a taken a photo of them. They were so cute being so pleased to sell me their food. They're all so nice. Sure, they have lots to gain from us tourists, ie money, but they are just so geniunely polite and fun at the same time. Oh and talking of photos, apols, I took a mere 1 photo today. So sum total of photos in Thailand = 1. I think the reason, no photos could have captured the moment properly. Wish I could give you a sense of some of the smells here. Some really gross, but so many nice ones too. I might be able to get another photo from last night from Chris's camera. She took a good photo of me and the bar girl playing connect four. Please note though, this was on the night club strip, so most of the girls behind the bars are hookers. But she was very fun to play connect four with, and not the least bit upset that none of us were going to take her home.

Woah, that was one huge paragraph. Still with me? For those of you with that personality that would like see events written in chronological order, so, no can do. So I've come to appreciate a couple of things travelling with Andrew. One, he likes to shop too much, although this can be debated according to one's own shopping preferences. Two, ah, no, I will come back to that one. So three, he is really very very good at converting currency. He's amazing actually. I'm just hopeless. Divide by 10, then by 3. So many of you are asking right now why I don't just divide by 30 aren't you. Argh, too hard. Andrew of course, divides by 28 point something something. As for me, son of an accountant? Yes, but I didn't get those counting genes. On the other hand, have I already written this? So, contrasting to that, Andrew has absolutely no idea what any of the Thai people are saying to him. He just nods and smiles. Seriously, he hasn't a clue. Me, on the other hand, quite enjoy talking to them, and find them fairly easy to understand. So he's the numbers man, and I'm the talk to them man. And when talking doesn't work, I can revert to miming. I did the "atm" this morning. Andrew asking the hotel concierge got him no-where. My miming got us the directions. He gets so frustrated trying to talk to them. And I have absolutely no idea what anything is worth. Well, sometimes I do, but many minutes later. I feel this condition may necessitate a "mum - send money" telegram in a couple of weeks time. No, I'll be down with it by then. No really, I will, even if I need to prepare myself a litte cheat sheet.

We successfully avoided being scammed by some "I'm your tour representative, please book all tours through me. I can confirm your transfers and flights too". We missed the first meeting we were meant to have with them. "What meeting?" I asked. Why would we meet with them? What's the point. The point is they want our money, I guess, can't blame them for that. We checked out a local agent, a sweet woman, Kart I think, very quiet and polite, well, very Thai really. She recommended some tour operators over others, but let us choose. Also offered us the off-peak rates, which the scammer certainly didn't!

Can't blame them. Interesting thoughts and repucussions tied up in that. They are everywhere, trying to get us to spend money. Sometimes pushy, often scamming with things like "Ah I served you yesterday. I give you better price today." Mmm, now that's odd, since I've never been here before. Oh, what's that, you were the man who stamped my passport at customs? Ah, no, not falling for that one. Or this one, this one I think I will hate very soon. Walking past someone selling something, tailored suits, rip off clothes, watches, dvds or tuk tuks, here's the line: "G'day mate. Want a -insert item-?", said in a really bad ochre accent. Yes of course we're bloody Australian, every fucking tourist here is! Except those two New Zealanders who were convinced NZ was hotter than Australia. Clearly they need to travel a bit closer to home before venturing to places like Thailand I think.

Oh, btw, tuk tuks. I don't know the translation of the word, although tuk tuk is a transliteration, thank you Mark K, but it is like a taxi, well, I guess it is one. But it's like those really really small 80's vans we had in Au, with a couple of bench seats in the back tray, so kinda van crossed with ute, and a canopy over the tray. All very very clean and tidy, the owners proudly looking after them. They're cheap and easy to use to get around. The tuk tuk we used tonight to get to the night markets, that was a cool one. Think a hotted up Holden Commie crossed with a tuk tuk (if you managed to imagine that one earlier or have seen them here or elsewhere before). Very cool, and he had the music to boot too! Subwoofer under one of the bench seats, skirts, paint job etc. That would be the one photo I took. We negotiated 300 Baht for him to take us like 30 mins to Phuket town, then wait 2-3 hours while we were at the markets (read wait as sleep), then bring us back for another 300 Baht. Yesterday, us being the newbies, we paid 300 Baht to go the short distance from Karon to Patong. Amateurs. This tuk tuk driver (tonight's hotted up one) was a Buddhist, like many, those who aren't Hindu, and at the top of each hill, or where there is a Buddha shrine, they beep three times, for safe travelling. Clearly this was my issue back in Adelaide on my scooter. Had I practiced that one I may never have had my little accident. Although I don't see many Buddha shrines on Adelaide street corners...

The hotel here is very nice. If you don't appreciate hotel commentary, just day dream a moment. We solved the riddle of the KL light switch thing, having to sleep with some lights on. The lights can be controlled by light switches, or, as was the case, also by a master control by the bed. Durggh! Idiots! The bathroom has a cool feature window into the bedroom bit, so you can see whoever is in the shower showering. Yeah, odd at first. I think Luke or Alex might imagine some of the temptations going throught my head. But no matter now, completely oblivious to seeing it now. We each have a queen size bed to ourselves, so it's all good.

And my untold story of last night? Well, I started saying before, about not judging the people here, but got side tracked, and have no desire to go back and edit my ramblings. Bri and Chris had befriended a transvestyte, god I can't even spell it, prostitute. Oh, it wasn't too hard to work out she was a man. Anyway, she had come here a few years ago, seven maybe, running away from her family. In her 30's I think. Or his. Whatever. She hadn't spoken to them during that time, feeling she couldn't be herself. Even had a child I think. But has recently made contact again. Anyway, they say their lives are much better now. Really? asks the white middle class Australian who because he is a white middle class Australian thinks everyone can help themselves to get a better life without becoming a prostitute (I hear a cheer from Paula). Yeah, the bars here in Phuket look after them really well, with accommodation and medical insurance, a far better life then they had before. That said white middle class Australian doesn't understand, but he couldn't without removing that white middle class Au filter. And in a way, Phuket itself is prostituting itself to gain the tourism dollar, all of them, the tour agents, hotels, tuk tuk drivers. But then, is that what we all do? We adapt so we can work and get good money by serving the client? Oh, it's easy for you reading this blog in your nice cosy home or office in Australia to judge the trannies here, but different when you actually meet them. They're very open and honest about their lifestyle. One woman, who was obviously a man, well, once, had poor English, but told us a little about herself throughout our conversation. Sure, she was there for the money, at our table, getting 100 Baht because she wiggled her way into a photo with Andrew. And an animal thing, lizard thing, sounds like guarana, but isn't. She had a child, seven years ago, using the internationally recongnised hand movements to indicate pregancy and finger counting. Oh, wake up, that's right, was a man, so most likely she wanted to be pregant, but in fact fathered a child. Regardless, they are real people, and she got her photo money, and none of us were taking her anywhere. But she was still happy.

The rest of last night's bizarre story can remain unwritten I think. It wasn't disgusting, just odd. Bizarre. And, I ashamedly ask, why do Australans want to see this, given that the Thai's adapt their tourism to them? Australians, you are odd. Or perhaps perfectly normal, given how odd ppl really all are.

Going on a tour tomorrow, sea canoeing, through caves and stuff. Although, much to my dissapointment, I noticed just now, whilst getting ready for bed, that I don't actually get to paddle. I get paddled. Um, something seems very wrong about that turn of phrase. But you get my point. Promise photos! And if you haven't worked this out yet, writing these blog entries in MS Notepad and uploading them to the internet at a later time. Access is a bit limited at the moment, oh, more inconvenient. So apologies to my parents who probably think I died in a bomb blast or a monsoon somewhere. Yes, even on holiday, strangely, I managed to pick up a couple of headlines. Thank you Bri. Will upload all this tomorrow night. But this is all superflivous to me. I don't do numbers, dates or days. I have no idea. I ask Andrew what day it is. He always knows. He's taunting me though. His watch, he has left in on Adelaide time. Read left it as set it to that, since he bought it in KL. He just takes 2.5 hours off the reading. So every "what's the time?" question gets answered with a, "Well in Adelaide it is xxx right now, so that means its xxx here". Idiot. He's just doing it to annoy me. Mission accomplished I think.

One last story, ate lunch in Patong beach today, before the massage and sea swim. So good, the food. Although Andrew was boring and ordered a burger and chips, good hang-over food he thought. I enjoyed a stir fry with vegies vegies and a little beef, and some rice and beer. All for equivelant of A$10, ie A$5 each. And it was good! Loving the food here.

And Martin, I gotta apoligise here, notepad would be useful with a spell check wouldn't it? Anyway, the apology, you were right about Phuket. Despite all of what I just wrote, I'm not sure I'm down with all that. I love Australians and Australia, but really, we don't make good tourists. And Phuket? It's for Australians. Get the picture? Looking fwd to moving on later in the week! My hands are tied on this one, but Heidi I think you would understand perfectly what I mean.

So sick of markets, the tourist ones at least. They are just so... what's the word... boring? Everything catered to Aussies, but I did notice some missing brands. Well I wouldn't as you know, but someone pointed out to me the key missing brands. Brands had been here recently clamping down on rip offs of their products, so they were just driven further underground. So in some shops, they have a shopfront, of which they sell very little from. They point out to you that there are rip offs, and there are rip offs. Or they wait for you to ask for specific brands, then you are led through the store to the back, and through some kinda secret door you enter another room, larger than the first. This is the mother lode.

And may I just air a gripe about my bank? Please? I'll be quick. It's a Visa card, right, and so you can use them in atms all across the world. Or so you would think. If you can determine what damn account to select. Sometimes it works, mostly not though. So no cash out of atms for me, and imagine a whole heap of transaction denied fees. Thankfully I brought a back-up card, just in case, so now that's my card of choice. Damn bank, I asked them this back in Adelaide, suspicious as to why it often didn't work in their own atms. Of course, an alternative view of this situation is that someone has drained my account dry.

Welcome to Thailand!

2006-10-01T21:59:00.000+09:30

"Welcome to Thailand!". Enough said about that I think. Andrew's friend Bri is here in Phuket with her mother. They thought they might show us some of the worst, or best, of Phuket nightlife. It was just odd. Bizarre. Yeah, enough said.

The airport experience was everything I had read about Thailand in novels. So nothing like KL. Crusty airport, disorganised, herding people, slow customs, stupid forms, stand on yellow footprints please and look into camera please for next 3 minutes whilst we process your entry. Please remain on the yellow footprints, don't approach the counter. Stop looking around, remain looking at the camera. Oh, and cos the customs process took so long, your luggage has been dumped over there on the floor with everyone elses.

It's my calling...

2006-09-29T17:11:00.000+09:30

It's my role in life to loose things. It's my calling, I'm certain of it. Leave it on a plane, on a car roof, or just drop it in a convenient ocean. Wallets, phones, cameras, I don't discriminate. Which is why it was odd that after the "what a wonderful photo opportunity" comment Andrew was heard to say, "shit, where's my camera". The word camera might be best read as, "my friend's 5 mega pixel camera". He had it moments ago after we had come down from KL Tower. Mmm. He went back to ask. Could it have been pick-pocketed? Though this is seriously one big camera. Hard not to notice that slip out of your pocket. Mmm, very hard to imagine how he could have lost it in the last like 5 minutes. No luck at the tower. He retraced his steps. Oh, there it is. Cooling off in the fountain, where he had cooled off his feet a few minutes previously! Yeah, so one very cooled down, and water logged camera.

So the aforementioned KL Tower. Seen one seen them all really. Imagine an orange on a toothpick, only it's all concrete not organic. Yeah, we've all been up them before. You walk around 360 degrees trying to identify the landmarks. You do the full lap and are left wondering, surely there is more? How can I have done the whole 360 degress already? Yeah, well you did. But I can find one very unique thing about this tower. The thick mist I think helped me spot this one, although I always find it fascinating to look straight down from these towers. People always look like ants. So what should I spot way down there near the base of the tower. You wouldn't see it in Sydney. Sewage works. Yup, those distinctive green circular pools. They really can't be mistaken. Sure, they were surrounded by lush green parklands, but sewage works they certainly were. Needless to say, they weren't marked out on the photos displaying the landmarks.

We had earlier been to the Petronas Twin Towers. One can't visit KL without visiting the these towers. You know the ones... they were in Mission Impossible. Anyway, we got our tickets to go up to the sky bridge, they were free, but we had an hour until we could go up... mmm, what to do for an hour when neither of us liked the shopping prospects? Outside, we spotted KL Tower. Lets grab a taxi and get up there. The fare cost us RMD50. Later that day, from near Chinatown we caught a taxi back to the hotel. RMD12. Mmm. Maybe it was 1/2 or 2/3 the distance of that earlier taxi trip. We'd been scamed. That was apparent. Andrew thinks the guy was a bit sus, he did this sniffing thing, and everytime he did it he reached out and pressed something on the meter, apparently disguising the beeping sound. Mmm.

Anyway, we didn't return to redeem our tickets. Like I said, seen one, seen them all. Although I did find it interesting about the design of the building. It's designed according to some Islamic ideas:

Geometry enlightens the intellect & set one's mind right. All its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometric reasoning because it is well arranged & orderly. The mind that constantly applies itself to to geometry is unlikely to fall into error."

Mmm. I guess. Maybe. Noted though that the so called geometry was altered slightly to increase design effeciency. Based upon an eight pointed star, an ideogram for qualities of fourness, like the cardinal directions of north, south, east and west, earth, wind, fire and water and a new one, hot, cold, moist and dry.

So after recovering the lost camera, yup, that rather wet camera, we then proceeded to have to recover ourselves from being lost in some beautiful gardens that led nowhere. We were headed to Chinatown, but these gardens weren't. I was keen to visit Chinatown, it was apparently, read apparently with some cynanism, contained much of the original architecture of KL, surviving the early 1900's to now building boom. Looking at a map in a shop front, having made it that far by noting siginigicant buildings from KL Tower, I thought of a smart idea. We knew the general direction of the infamous Petalong Street of Chinatown, so I noted the streets either side of it, so we would know when we were close and not have a near miss incident. Yup, Jalan something something. Sorted. Off we walked. Ah, here it is, Jalan something something, it will be the next street. Sure enough, it was. Only later did I realise how ridiculous was this. The word Jalan, yup, you guessed it, is the Malaysian word for 'street'. How silly was I? Funny how my stupid-tourist plan worked anyway.

So was Chinatown this historic relic. No, not really, I think my imagination may have been a little enthusiastic. It was shopping, shopping and shopping. Although it was cheap, the street crammed with stalls in front of each shop front. "You want tshirt - you want sunnies - you want watch? No! You want dvd? No. Oh, but you want porn? You young man, you like porn? I got girls for you? No? I got boys too? NO!" We did go find ourselves some food though. We were brave again. Didn't want to try the dried pork, or those strange animals hanging on hooks. But wer found this kinda serve yourself thing, for like RMD5, which is like less than $2. Oh, it was so good! You like my photo here? No, that isn't a pretty pattern on my tshirt there. Yes, it's what you are thinking, they are the sweat marks where the backpack we were sharing was. Incidentally, it wouldn't have been so heavy had Andrew not been lazy and unpacked it a little. Really, why did we need to take a container of hair wax on a trip around KL for? Anyway, despite how disgusted Andrew was with my sweat marks, hey, I was carrying the damn bag here, my nice one of the most expensive t-shirts I have ever owned had done well. Seriously, I'm Jay-Jays 3 for $25 through-and-through. So this expensive outdoor adventure t-shirt is one of those wicking ones. You know the ads with... mmm... we all know him... can't ask Andrew he is napping... if say tennis and "c'mon" with lots of tone, you know the guy, him, he advertising similar stuff in Bonds underwear. Wicking, it draws the sweat away from the skin. Very comfortable, highly recommended. Means you look like you are really uncomfortable with that sweat soaked t-shirt, but in fact you didn't even notice. No yukky sticky t-shirt.

Our environmentally conscious driver drove us back to the airport, ever as concerned for greenhouses gasses as ever. It was good to see a bit of suburban KL. Did I like KL you ask? Yes. No. It's a big city. It's not an ugly one though, with lots of lush green gardens and stuff, lots of modern architecture. But like any city, scratch the surface and find ugly. Those backstreets and laneways were full of rubbish, and the back of seemingly every building. An innumerable quantity of split system air cons. And can I describe the smells? Thinking festering water. That "picturesque lake" I saw this morning from the hotel, that it seemed was part of a complex drainage system designed to cope with the huge quantities of rain water that is delivered to the tropics. So do I think I really visited KL? Did I see any of the real city? See any of the real ppl? In less than 24 hours? I doubt it. Do I want to return one day? Yeah, but prob only if it was a stop-over. This is shopping heaven, and I only don't being in any place where those two words cohabitate!

Yawn. Tired now. At KL airport, waiting for our flight to Phuket. Andrew is funny, but now napping, listening to "let's do the timewarp again". He's an odd one...

I'll come back later and upload some photos. The free wireless internet here at KL airport is a little too slow for images.

Back again. Here with photos. No hi-res images though, dubs too slow. I just realised the English letters on this keyboard are all obscured. But the Thai keys are clear. Lucky I don't need to look at the keys to type. Photos, enjoy.

Day 1

2006-09-29T17:08:00.000+09:30

I wrote this when I awoke this morning. I'm waiting at KL airport now, although sorry, no photos yet. Travel and uploading of photos aren't always compatiable. Oh, and just for the record, my mobile doesn't work, well, at the moment anyway, can fix that in the next few days.

Mmm. It was daylight. Nice view from the 14th floor, misty, ooh, a picturesque lake below, didn't see that last night from the street. Oh, no, I think it might be a rubbish dump. It's kinda hard to tell. There is a lot of rubbish floating in it...

Mental note. When I don't understand what they said, and Andrew looks like he did understand, he didn't, he's just better at looking like he understood. We were brave, we ventured out from our hotel to walk the streets and find something to eat. I say we were brave, cos we ate at this kinda outdoor food court looking place, which seemed pretty regular and everyone knows how they work, but when we entered we were hastily shown to a table. Mmm. How does one order food from any one of those many food places surrounding it? They were very firm in getting us seated. This confused us. But once sorted, we ate some Thai chicken with rice, and a weird sausage thing that Andrew thought looked pretty safe, and was so yumo. We discussed how much we might look like tourists. I got out my wallet to pay, so sorting throught the RM250 I withdrew from an ATM (A$100), to pay the RM10 bill, was I being like, say, someone in Au standing in a pub and flicking through several one hundred dollar bills, staring at them blankly, and then handing one over to pay for a $3 schooner of beer? Dunno. Regardless, we resolved not to do that again. We don't wanna be dumb tourists.

We're in Kuala Lumpar, or KL, and it wasn't the culture shock I expected. When I was like 12 I remember when being fortunate enough to go to Singapore, that getting out of the airport, into the hot, humid, smelly evironment at night was strange. So yukky weather feeling, and so many ppl, all going mentally everywhere. Anyway, it wasn't like that, or at least didn't seem like it, perhaps because I had these weird memories. It wasn't hot and humid, well it was, but it was most welcome this time! It was 10pm. Three other Aussies we rode in the van with into the city, who sat up the front of the van, which might explain their comments, described the drive as "nail biting". The father seemed thankful it was dark so he couldn't see as much. Argh, it was all good. Got to admire these Malayasians. They seem so environmentally conscious. The van driver seemed intent on saving a little fuel (and the environment) by being pulled along in the slip stream of the car in front of us, yeah, even at 100km/h when there was little traffic. Got to admire this place though, when we walked to the van at the airport, on that little pick-up road every airport has, just beyond it was the first of presumably many multi-level carparks at the airport. Full of cars? Nope, all motorbikes. Can you imagine, ever seeing so many motorbikes in one place? Despite there being so many here, our driver gave them little respect, passing them whilst they and the van were both in the same lane. Actually, he wasn't really being discriminate, he was like that with every vehicle. Ah, perhaps I'm being dramatic. I was sitting up the back just taking in some of the lights of the city.

The seven hour flight was good. For one thing, international plane travel seems to have changed since I last did it like 15 years ago. Malaysia Airlines is a nice airline, but still the cheapest to fly to Thailand from Adelaide, yet we had tv's in the back of the seat. Do heaps of airlines have this? I have no idea, I have seem some advertise they do, I really have no idea. But it did make it easy to make the time pass. Watched some movies, and tv, and read, whilst also being able to follow on the Google-earth looking thing of where we were currently flying. A special mention for Jo, I watched an episode of 'The Extras', the one where the great with a capital G film writer discusses his idea for his movie or show, when the same incident recurs again and again, just in a different setting. No plot, no story, just isolated women having all the clothes fall off, and it being too late, the guy in the story has seem it all by then.

Sitting in the departure lounge in Adelaide, with Andrew's friend Tash who had just seen her mum off to Tas, we cycled through the alphabet. A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K... surely there was no L? We were seats J and K. They gotta be window seats. Which they were. It made a change from looking out on Australia on the way to Sydney or Melbourne. Lots of desert. Lots and lots and lots of it. It looked beautiful the way water shaped the land, it's dry scars passing for miles and miles. And how beautiful the way the hills and stuff were formed. Nice patterns. And occassionally a road, straight as an arrow, and then for no apparent reason changing direction to pass around some unseen natural formation. And ever so rarely, an airstrip, or a road ending in a little loop which was obviously a station or something. Flying over Indonesia, as the sun set, we could see mountains emerging through the clouds. Don't see that one flight to Melbourne. Looked beautiful. And as it grew darker, several large fires, I guess oil rigs out in the water.

Anyway, off to explore the city...

Just 3 sleeps to go!

2006-09-25T17:47:00.000+09:30

Three more sleeps...

Travel Warning Downgraded

2006-09-21T22:40:00.000+09:30

The Department of Foreign Affairs has downgraded the travel warning to Thailand from "Reconsider your need to travel" to "High degree of caution" (Previously to the military coup there was no travel warning against 'Thailand overall', just the southern provinces).

www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Thailand

"Thailand was back to work as normal today"

2006-09-21T15:48:00.000+09:30

Thais go back to work after coup
By Nopporn Wong-Anan in Bangkok
September 21, 2006 08:10am
Article from: Reuters

THAILAND was back to work as normal today, less than 36 hours after a military coup condemned by international leaders but endorsed by the royal palace and greeted by many Thais with relief.

The military shut down the city yesterday, in the interests of maintaining calm, they said. But Bangkok traffic was back to the familiar near-gridlock, while coup leaders worked on fulfilling a promise of a civilian prime minister in two weeks.

[+/-] show/hide more story
Ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in London overnight from New York, where he was at the UN General Assembly when the coup was staged on Tuesday, and appeared to accept his fate.

"I was prime minister when I came, and I was jobless on the way back," the Thai News Agency quoted him as telling reporters travelling with him. "I volunteered to work for the country, but if they don't want me to do that, I won't."

Mr Thaksin was welcome to return home to Thailand, coup leaders said, although the police chief made clear he would have to face charges already filed, including charges of election fraud.

The politically wise, however, were not ruling Mr Thaksin out of the game.

"This is not a man who likes to lose," Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University said. "Thaksin's support runs deep."

"If there's an election supervised by the UN, Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai would win, and that's a problem for Thailand," he said, referring to Mr Thaksin's political party, which translates as Thais Love Thais.

Fears for the Thai economy eased as calm prevailed and coup leaders set out the timetable for return to civilian rule, although Morgan Stanley cut its annual economic growth forecast for the second half of the year to 2.4 per cent from 3.5 per cent.

Thai stocks dropped nearly four percent on reopening today but within minutes recovered to less than two per cent lower than Tuesday's close.

The drop was not as precipitous as feared in the immediate aftermath of the coup, when credit ratings firms had warned of possible downgrades.

Moody's Investor Service reaffirmed Thailand's ratings and stable outlook on Thursday and the Thai baht was steady in early trade after shedding nearly two percent on Tuesday.

The coup leaders said they would craft within a year a constitution to repair flaws Mr Thaksin was accused of exploiting to wield near dictatorial powers, then hold an election.

"We have two weeks. After two weeks, we step out," said army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, whose military "Political Reform Council" was legitimised by a royal proclamation.

The US said there was no justification for the coup, but pointedly did not demand that Mr Thaksin be returned to power and instead urged a swift return to democracy.

"We're disappointed in the coup. We hope that those who mounted it will make good swiftly on their promises to restore democracy," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Tuesday's putsch was Thailand's first coup in 15 years but its 18th since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

The military said it was forced to act because there was no other way out of a protracted political crisis that pitted Mr Thaksin against the old guard and street campaigners accusing him of subverting democracy for his family and friends in business.

Not a shot was fired and many Thais seemed to welcome the coup, as long as it stayed peaceful.

Stablising?

2006-09-21T10:52:00.000+09:30

Still no violence, things appear stable, the revered king is supportive.

A good background article from the Australian:

Possibly a coup for the better
By Greg Sheridan
September 21, 2006 12:00am

AN Australian businessman recalls one of his first visits to Bangkok several decades ago. He was riding in a chauffeur-driven car with a senior official from a state company. The car passed some soldiers.

"Ah, yes," said the Thai businessman, "in Thailand we have military coups on the first Tuesday of every month. But only at 11am and they must be over by lunchtime."

It's a long time since Thais were so used to coups. It is 15 years since the last one and Thailand and all who wish the country well would have hoped that the era was past.

There is so much to like about Thailand. It is in so many ways such a model of reasonableness, friendliness, effective government and economic progress that the sight of soldiers patrolling the streets of Bangkok again is deeply disturbing.

Yet there are reasonable grounds for thinking that this coup could work out more or less OK.
[+/-] show/hide more story
Part of the analytical problem is that deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is such a complex and contradictory figure.

Thaksin won elections that were legitimate and democratic. Therefore he should not be driven from office by soldiers. Further to Thaksin's defence, he ran a Government that did a lot of good things.

He was a good friend to Australia and got on well with John Howard. He oversaw steady economic expansion. This year the Thai economy has been growing at about five per cent.

Democratic legitimacy and sustained economic growth are a good double for any prime minister. And yet in many ways Thaksin is the author of his own demise, and it may be that this demise is necessary for Thailand to move forward.

For Thaksin had managed to put himself at loggerheads with three pillars of Thai society and political power: the people of Bangkok, the King and the army.

The causes of this alienation do not reflect well on Thaksin.

Under his Government, corruption was widespread.

More particularly, Thaksin had deeply affronted the citizens of Bangkok by the way he sold his family firm, Shin Corp, to a Singapore Government-controlled company in a multibillion-dollar transaction.

There is no suggestion that the Singapore Government, or the Singapore corporation involved, have done anything wrong. Nor has any illegality been proved about the transaction itself. The transaction was, however, highly irregular and highly advantageous to Thaksin.

Whatever the technicalities of the transaction prove to be, it looked like a massive conflict of interest for a prime minister to be acting this way.

There is a fundamental split in Thai society between Bangkok, which is a sophisticated city, and the countryside, where policy matters less in determining election results than regional affiliation and, at times, even vote-buying practices.

There is an old saying that Thai governments are made in the countryside and unmade in Bangkok. This is what happened to Thaksin.

In the end, he totally lost the respect of the citizens of Bangkok, even though he maintained the support of the countryside.

As a result, in April this year there were huge anti-Thaksin demonstrations. Finally, even the King, the revered and much-loved Bhumibol Adulyadej, intervened to bring the earlier crisis to a close.

In the countryside, especially the north, the citizens are undoubtedly more fond of their King than their Prime Minister.

But the King tries to be as neutral as possible in Thai politics, only intervening when absolutely necessary.

The signals of disapproval that he sent out about Thaksin therefore were subtle and restrained. They were clear enough in Bangkok, but less clear in the countryside.

In any event, it became impossible for Thaksin to continue.

Yet, analysts say, he may not have wanted to formally step down from the position of Prime Minister because of what a future Thai government might decide to do about -- and with -- the proceeds of the sale of Shin Corp.

Other Thaksin family assets may also be under threat.

Thaksin had also fatally fallen out with the military.

This was over two issues.

One was his determination to appoint his own loyalists to senior positions within the military in this year's round of promotions.

This, of course, is the right of a democratic government.

But, given how much corruption flourished under Thaksin's Government, there was good reason to fear what the consequences of these appointments might be.

Although the promotions round was the main cause of the alienation of the military, there was another issue of much greater importance.

Thaksin has made a spectacular mess of handling the Islamist insurgency gripping the southern provinces of Thailand.

This insurgency is exceptionally shadowy and difficult to understand but informed sources suggest that since the beginning of 2004 about 1700 people have died in the conflict.

At the weekend, terrorist bombings in southern Thailand killed four people and injured 60.

They represented a departure from previous practice because they seemed to target tourists and occurred outside the three provinces that have been the centre of insurgent activity.

However, the best regional intelligence assessment is that the insurgents of southern Thailand do not co-operate with Jemaah Islamiah, al-Qaeda or any other global jihadist group.

They are Islamists but they are nationalists first and there is a lot of other stuff going on as well: criminality, personal disputes, corruption and so on.

Notwithstanding last weekend's bombings, it is still believed that the Muslim terrorists of southern Thailand are not targeting Westerners, are not integrating their struggle into global jihadism and are not moving to targets elsewhere in Thailand -- such as Bangkok or Phuket -- that could severely damage the Thai economy.

The Thai military had a good handle on all this until a few years ago when Thaksin, in an act of wilful stupidity, abolished the mechanisms of local consultation that had built up over many years, when the conflict had subsided to much lower levels of violence.

The Thai army, led by General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin - coincidentally a Muslim - wants to try to re-create a political dialogue with the insurgents and try to address the legitimate grievances that the insurgents have exploited.

Thaksin, in contrast, was determined to pursue a gung-ho, force and only force approach that was ineffective and was making things worse.

This may have been just arrogance on the part of Thaksin and his advisers, although some analysts speculate that it was a way of distracting attention from his own problems. In any event, it was exceptionally dangerous.

The Thai military has promised it will soon have new elections and a return to full democracy. Presumably Thaksin will not be allowed to contest these elections.

The military has some support and advice from the King's advisers on the Privy Council. Most important, the King has said nothing against the army.

The Bangkok public is likely to be ambivalent about this: glad to be rid of Thaksin, unhappy at military rule, probably willing to allow the interim government enough legitimacy to oversee a transition to a new democratic dispensation.

No democrat can support a military coup but Thai coups are the gentlest in the world, and this one may conceivably provide a path to something better.

Waiting... Watching...

2006-09-20T12:45:00.000+09:30

Military Coup

2006-09-20T09:05:00.000+09:30

So when one sees on the tv, in that little news bar, that the Au Govt has upgraded travel warnings to Thailand to "reconsider need to travel" (it was previously "high degree of caution"), one expects it would be in regard to further violence in the south. Nope. Military coup, the military overthrowing the government overnight. A 'state of emergency' has been declared by the now effectively-out-of-power government, and the military has revoked the constitution.

So seeing how the next few days pans out will be interesting. A check of my travel insurance reveals the following: "General Exclusions Applicable to all Sections. We will not pay for any of the following losses: ... 5. A loss that arises from any act of war – whether war is declared or not – or from any rebellion, revolution, insurrection or taking of power by the military."

This advice has been reviewed and reissued. It contains new information in the Summary and on Safety and Security: Civil unrest/Political tension (apparent military-led takeover of the Government). The overall level of the advice has increased.

* In light of the very uncertain political situation and apparent military-led takeover of the Government, we strongly advise Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Thailand until the situation is clarified. Australians in Thailand should exercise extreme caution. You should avoid concentrations of military personnel or military activity.
* You should avoid demonstrations and political rallies as they have the potential to turn violent. You should stay indoors, monitor the media, and follow the instructions of the local authorities.

Military seizes power in Thailand
By Anusak Konglang in Bangkok
September 20, 2006 08:03am
Article from: Reuters

THE Thai army seized control of Bangkok today without a shot being fired, dismissed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, revoked the constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms.

A government spokesman at the UN with Mr Thaksin telephoned a Thai television station to announce a state of emergency in an apparent attempt to head off the coup.

He said the army could not succeed and "we're in control".

But tanks and troops took over Government House in Thailand's first coup in 15 years and a coup spokesman said the army and police were in control of the capital and surrounding provinces.

Armoured vehicles and soldiers took up position on many street corners, but life in most of Bangkok continued much as usual with traffic moving through rain drenched streets and the airport operating normally.

The seizure would be temporary and power "returned to the people" soon, retired Lieutenant-General Prapart Sakuntanak said on all Thai television channels.

Foreign news channels, including CNN and the BBC, were cut off.

The army told all soldiers to report to base and banned unauthorised troop movements, suggesting the military leadership was worried that Thaksin loyalists in the armed forces might attempt a counter-coup.

Lt-Gen Prapart said the armed forces and police had set up a body to decide on political reforms, ousting billionaire telecoms tycoon Mr Thaksin in the midst of a political crisis stemming from accusations he had subverted Thailand's 74-year-old democracy.

"Never in Thai history have the people been so divided," Lt-Gen Prapart said.

"The majority of people had become suspicious of this administration, which is running the country through rampant corruption," he said.

"Independent bodies have been interfered with so much they could not perform in line within the spirit of the constitution."

Weerasak Kohsurat, a deputy minister in a previous government, said he believed royal adviser Sumate Tantivejakul would steer the political reform process.

Elections would be called when it was done and Mr Thaksin, Thailand's longest serving elected prime minister, would be allowed to take part, he said.

Australians told to avoid Thailand
September 20, 2006 08:24am
Article from: AAP

AUSTRALIANS are being urged to reconsider travel to Thailand after a coup overnight, while authorities are on standby to help anyone stranded there.

The Thai army seized control in Bangkok last night without a shot being fired, dismissing Prime Minister Thaksin while he was in New York for the UN General Assembly.

The army also revoked the constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms, as tanks and troops took over Government House in the nation's first coup in 15 years.

Armoured vehicles and soldiers took up positions on street corners, but life in most of Bangkok continued largely uninterrupted.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has issued an advisory warning against travel to the troubled south-east Asian nation.

"In light of the very uncertain political situation and apparent military-led takeover of the Government, we strongly advise Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Thailand until the situation is clarified," DFAT's travel advisory reads.

It also warns that Australians in Thailand should exercise extreme caution and staff at the Australian embassy in Bangkok have been told not to send their children to school until the situation stabilises.

Map of Travel Plans

2006-09-14T18:51:00.000+09:30

I was going to create a Google map using the Google Earth thing and have it inserted into the blog... but although I am sure I could have worked out the documentation, I just couldn't be bothered. Besides I prefer pretty colours to accuracy... the base map used here is courtesy of Smart Traveller, for courtesy, read right-click-save. Nevertheless, these are my travel plans...

Thailand October 06

2006-09-12T15:53:00.000+09:30

It seemed so long ago now. "Want to come to Thailand with me?" Andrew asked, as we sat at the Macca's drive-thru window waiting for our food. No. Mmm. Tempting. Maybe. No, I have already thought through my holiday plans, I'm going to NZ in early 2007. That's when my 4 weeks of annual leave will fall due. But then again... travelling with Andrew? I picked up a Lonely Planet guide for Thailand from the library. Yep, I was in. We would travel there together, book a 10 day holiday or something similar in Phuket, then he would return home, and I would back pack for a couple of weeks.

That was back in... I dunno... a while ago now, maybe May or June. Since then I've organised myself a passport, booked the tickets and accommodation for the 10 days with Andrew, bought a back pack and some clothes and travel accessories, and gotten myself loaded up with vaccinations. Ouch. Not the needles, the cost. All those things added up to quite a bit. Oh well, I've got some cool gear now for my hiking and for future travel. Went to a travel seminar at Trims for help with selecting travel stuff. Very useful. Booked myself into an Intrepid tour, a 6 day hill tribe trek out of Chang Mai in the north of Thailand. Bought some maps. etc etc. The etc's just never seemed to end.

Planning to travel pretty light, I hope! Well, that's my usual style and I've done lots of research so it should work out. I think my packing and Andrew's will be quite different, because the first 10 days of the holiday with Andrew is a different style of holiday to the the two weeks by myself. Kinda odd, deciding to do that. One is prebooked accom, transfers, breakfast incl etc, based in one hotel the whole time. The other nothing at all is planned, except the trek dates and when I need to be back in Bangkok to fly out. Will find my own accom each night, backpackers, guesthouses or camping.

It's now just two weeks until we leave. Very excited! But I didn't need to say that. That should be obvious.