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Chapter 1: Thailand 28-Jul-08 to 7-Aug-08 +ve spin rating: 8.5 out of 10
On 28-Jul-08 the Manchester Crew saw me off on my travels at Manchester Airport after a crazy weekend in Manchester (Mojo's 2 nights in a row of course). The flights to Dubai an Bangkok were a bit of a graft. In Bangkok Airport I refused to accept any taxi to Khao San Road, as advised, and instead took the bus. It was all a bit daunting at this point because I was pretty exhausted and the feeling of being alone hit me. Nevertheless once I found my hotel (New World City Hotel) I decided to take a little walking trip down Khao San Road... everything I heard about this street was true, plus I saw 2 baby elephants which is perfectly normal of course!
The next day I met up with half the tour group who I was traveling to Chiang Mai with as part of the 8 day Tap into Thailand tour... two couples (mid twenty English - Rich and Natalie, and middle aged Dutch - Max (our Buddha) and Alice), two 19 year old English Girls and me! We walked around Bangkok a bit with our tour leader before catching the night train to Chiang Mai, during which we had a few brews but had to be in bed by 10pm so didn't get locked.
Shortly after arrival in Chiang Mai I went with Kim (one of the English Girls) to a Thai cooking school for half the day, I convinced the teacher that meat and two veg is the way to go. Then after a nap (I'm napping a lot and loving it) the group was joined by a twenty something Swiss couple and another three 19 year old English girls (woohoo!). It was funny to watch the original English girls (Kim and Sara) death stare any of the new ones (Lucy, Natasha and Emma) who dared look at me - I assured Kim and Sara they had nothing to worry about, they then relaxed their guard. The group went to the night bazaar to get a few things for the 3-day trek the next day then got an early night.
We were picked up by pick-up trucks (made all safety regs of course) to get left to our drop-off points where we started trekking into the jungle (on the way we stopped at a waterfall, the 5 girls got into their bikinis, I was happy about that, Sanit (tour leader) was not). By the way there were 2 trucks, I was in the one with the 5 girls... not wohoo.
We trekked about an hour to get to the first village, where Sanit is from. Wooden huts on stilts with mats on the ground was the accommodation - surprisingly comfortable! We were given the best meal to date and then bantered between ourselves and the tribe members. Some of the kids were called Monty, Gerrard and Ourkid... odd names for tribe members but there you go. They called me Rambo because I'm so big and strong. Someone got the guitar out, Johnny O'H would have been in his element but he wasn't there so what can yo do?!
Slept well till 5 (God damn cockerels exist in the freaking jungle too) had breakfast at 7.30 and then started the next part of the trek to the Elephant village at 9am. This part of the trek was class because it involved a lot of hills, monsoon rain, a number 2 in the woods and lasted 3-4 hours. Arriving at the Elephant village was pretty amazing because there were elephants there. We had another great lunch inc. some piranha and bbq'd beetle, to get ourselves energized for sitting on the elephants while they worked their asses off for and hour and 30 minutes. My elephant, called Mecha, was a bit of lazy, disruptive b*****... repeating 'Mecha ugh' does nothing whatsoever to speed him up. O yea, elephants have 5 legs, not 4 as most people think. After the elephant trek we had to trek ourselves (I mean come on! the elephants wouldn't take us the whole way?!) for an hour to the next village and sleeping point. Again, we had a savage meal, a few brews and a little guitar (still no O'H though). Some of the girls were whinging about being smelly and wanting a shower and their clothes being wet, but hey, that's what they do.
No trekking the next day, just a 2-3 hour raft made from bamboo (which again met all safety regs) down the river Mae Tong to our pick up point to go back to Chiang Mai. It was this particular morning that I bonded with Reto (Swiss guy) and the opposite with Stephanie (Reto's girlfriend) because she got very jealous of our bond. Reto and I are funny, Stephanie is not.
Back to Chiang Mai we went... yea the thought of getting a hot shower and the likes was appealing but in general it sucked ass leaving the jungle, it was a fantastic experience.
Anyway we decided to drown or sorrows in Chiang Mai that night; food, brews and a very good Thai band who sang Reggae and pop/rock music entertained us, another surreal sight. Stephanie showed us that she is even more of a wrecking ball with a few brews on board, crazy woman, dunno how Reto handles her?! I stuck with Ourkid and his mate late on, I beat them both in pool (I think?!). Got my first tuk-tuk too then woke the girls when I got back to the hotel, to their delight of course.
I woke up in a Chinese rec room and they would not stop screaming! My first hangover since leaving Manchester took a while to shake, I wondered around Chiang Mai very slowly and found an internet cafe which I sweated in for a while. We had free time till about 3pm when we met at the hotel to make our way to the train station for the non-desirable 2.5 class overnight train journey back to Bangkok. My bloody table with my food, beer and electronic belongings on it collapsed because I accidentally breathed on it, the train staff kindly cleaned it up and served me the fallen food at no extra price but not before a lovely woman planted her size 8 in it... yumm! A sharp transition from a positive to a negative spin. I won't even start on the hinged bin. Reto cheered me up with educating me on Switzerland and global economics, very interesting, he's an intelligent guy, bröste.
We arrived in Bangkok after a not-so-awesome sleep, said our good-byes to Reto and Stephanie only (we all missed those pair a lot) and made our way back to the hotel from the first night, but had to find a different one (Diamond House - good) because the girls and I were not booked in. I slept a lot during the day, didn't do much at all except internet, food and a few solemn brews on Khao San... I couldn't help it I was on a come down from the trek trip being over. We said our good-byes to Rich, Nat, Max and Alice after dinner and then the end of the evening was the last time I would see Natasha, Emma and Lucy.
On Wednesday Kim, Sara and I did a 12 hour sight seeing tour including the floating markets (boats/canoes with people selling stuff on them while you are also on a boat/canoe - grand like), Tiger Temple visit (the attraction is that there are tigers there surprisingly - beautiful animals) and finally the Bridge on the River Kwae (Death Railway of WWII). When we got back to Bangkok I give in to a foot long subway sandwich... and inevitably regretted it afterwards. Mum was then mesmerized by the powers of Skype when I spoke to her via video call, technology these days eh. I said au revoir to Kim and Sara before we went to sleep because I had an early start the next morning and did not intend to wake them.
I made my flight to Kathmandu... surprised? Nepal Umbrella Foundation here I come...
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