Thailand

It is cold at 5 in the morning in London. I had a jacket on, which I would later lose at immigration, but was trying to dress light due to my imminent arrival in country promising 35 degree heat. The loss of my jacket before even entering Thailand might be the quickest I have lost a thing whilst being away; it was the first of a few things that have already left my side and will in no way be the last. I am keeping a close eye on my passport, bank card, and phone and all other possessions are just transient, unnecessary items holding me back from moving from place to place without a sore back. Although I do quite like my highland cow shirt; I hope I don’t lose my highland cow shirt.

I have foreshadowed the loss of my jacket like any good writer would. Building suspense before the final pay off when I get to the other side of immigration and think aloud, ‘I don’t have my jacket’. But before this fateful moment I had to be on a plane for a long time. Qatar Airlines are a really nice airline, withholding their heavy editing of horror films and misuse of the word ‘sandwich’ where the phrase ‘reheated meat slab’ would be more appropriate,I had a very pleasant flight: the food quality was generally very good and the 20-30 minutes of sleep I had during the 23 hour journey really paid dividends to my general health and well-being.

Finally arriving in Bangkok I walked confidently towards immigration, jacket in hand. I asked the lady at the information desk for a pen and she handed it over. Full of the courage and vigour of a man who currently still owned a jacket I filled in the immigration form and headed towards the immigration line. Another literary trick I will now employ is where you let your audience know a secret the protagonist is not currently aware of, allowing them to feel a sense of superiority over their hero: I was no longer in possession of my jacket. I passed through immigration without incident, now in possession of a little sticker in my passport that allowed me into Thailand for 30 days, I reclaimed my bag and reached for my jacket...

Having already been to Bangkok nine years previously I didn’t have many plans whilst in the city. I spent the majority of my time lying in the hostel either talking with people or browsing my phone, whilst getting annoyed with myself that I wasn’t reading my book. On the first night I accidently got too drunk and smashed my phone causing me to spend 4000 Baht (100 Pounds) getting the screen replaced, but I think the less I say about that whole debacle the better. Although the actual experience of getting the screen replaced was a good one. I got a Tuk Tuk to the MBK Centre, a huge shopping centre in the centre of Bangkok. On the third floor are the electronics dealers. Seven acres (this is a complete guess and probably totally wrong) of small stalls essentially offering the same thing: new phones and phone repairs. As you walk around you get beckoned over by the enthusiastic stall holders hoping that their combination of phones, accessories, and repairs makes them stand out from the endless competition. It seems to be a general rule in Thailand that all the shops selling a particular item or offering a particular service need to all be found in the same place. I stumbled across a guitar shop whilst walking around Bangkok and then managed to stumble across 10 more almost identical shops. After getting very similar quotes from a handful of dealers I handed over my phone over to a stall. An hour and one cheese toastie later I had a fixed phone in my hand and smile back in my heart.

When I was here with Alex nine years ago I didn’t even take a phone but this time I would be pretty lost without it. The amount of internet cafes has severely dropped since 2008 and my willingness to look through guide books has fallen to almost zero. All my plans are made on my phone through Google, accomodation booked ahead, and maps saved offline so I always have access to GPS to guide me about. I need my phone and my phone needs me, if for nothing more than to pay for it to be fixed when I drop it on its stupid face.

After three days of doing next to nothing I decided to head north. I went to the train station and, after standing behind a very confused couple for about ten minutes, handed over my 15 Baht for a train ticket to Ayutthaya, the old capital. On the train I got talking to a girl called Svenya from Germany who, along with a handful of other folk, I would travel with for about a week. After about an hour of the train not moving just outside Bangkok we pulled into a station and was instructed by an enthusiastic food seller that we needed to change trains to continue our journey to Ayutthaya. Begrudgingly we gave up our seats on the train in exchange for a pungent corridor area near a toilet on the new train. I would later discuss this train journey with two young Australians who opted to stay on the initial train and got into Ayutthaya an hour before we did. During the journey many monks had to walk through our pungent corridor to get to their dedicated section, with one pointing at Svenya and saying ‘You! Go away!’ Being in that close proximity to a woman is not viewed favourably by monks. Only men are allowed to sit next to them on public transport, and apparently the sharing of pungent corridors is also frowned upon.

Ayutthaya was pretty nice. It had temples, ruins and other things of cultural significance to look at and to be near. I took this opportunity to look at and to be near these culturally significant things. After the exhaustion of looking and being near the aforementioned culturally significant things I ate the best pad thai, and arguably the nicest meal, I have eaten since arriving in Thailand. It was very nice. My eating habits have been split into two categories. The first being street food: pad thai, fried rice and meats, assorted meat on sticks, spring rolls etc. The second category is things I can purchase from 7/11. From this category special mention has to go to their cheese toasties of which I have had somewhere in the region of 15, an average of about one a day. This average was severely affected by my first full day in Bangkok where I was merrily hungover and ate four. I am hoping that in both Laos and Vietnam I can keep this culinary tradition going.

From Ayutthaya I moved onto to Lopburi where I met the remainder of my temporary travelling companions. Listed by their country of origin alphabetically: Beth and Rob from Southend, Jim from The Netherland, and Lucas and William from Sweden. Lopburi was a little town which had a large population of resident monkeys. They mainly hung out around the temple in the centre of town where you could pay to feed them and have them clamber all over you. The young ones were generally quite cute and polite whereas the adults were a bit more forward in their quest for corn; they would jump up to grab it from your hand or just try and take whole bag. Beth managed to get between an infant and its mother and was on the receiving end of a lot of hissing and teeth baring from the mother. Even though the monkeys were clearly accepted by the community as a whole, they were still a pest having to be chased out of restaurants and causing all sorts of monkey havok. Once a year they have a big feast for the monkeys, leaving out large amounts of fruit and other monkey delicacies for them to enjoy. I didn’t manage to ask a monkey what they thought of this tradition but rumour is that they are into it.

From Lopburi we continued to Sukhothai. The train only went as far as Phitsanulok and from there we had the plan to get a coach to our final destination. However, we were informed there were no more coaches and was pointed in the direction of a lady who was in possession of a vehicle that looked like it would be more suited in the transportation of prisoners or livestock. It was a truck with two benches on its back facing inwards with a large metal cage covering this entire seating area. With all eight of us squished in the back and the cage securely locked we headed off to Sukhothai. I really enjoyed this journey; apparently transit by cage really speaks to me in a way I’d never had imagined.

My main interest in going to Sukhothai was to a climb a mountain in Ramkhamhaeng National Park. Jim agreed to come with little encouragement, Svenya after quite a bit more; Rob also agreed to go but was a bit sleepy in the morning when we were heading off. The three of us ate a hearty breakfast in Poo Restaurant. I am unsure whether there has been some translation issues here or they have cleverly given their business a dumb name to suck in tourists. Either way, it was very nice and over the course of our three nights in Sukhothai we had many meals in Poo, including their internationally renowned Poo Set Breakfast One and Four. After breakfast and utilising the Poo waitress’ English skills to explain to a Tuk Tuk driver where we wanted to go we were on our way to the National Park.

At the bottom of the mountain we paid our entrance fee (ten times more than the Thais pay), booked a tent for an overnight stay at the top, and started walking. The walk was hot, and steep, and hot again. We climbed 4km in just over 2 hours, with multiple stops for putting water both on and in our faces. At the top we were directed towards our tent and given sleeping bags. After a short bit of lying still to recover from the climb we headed to the mountain summit to soak in some pretty spectacular views. From a smaller summit, in order to avoid the crowds, we watched the sunset which was also pleasant. I tried to take a timelapse but my battery ran out after 15 minutes and the remaining footage only confirms my inability to sit still. With darkness upon us we returned to the campsite taking in the fireflies on the way.

At the campsite there was approximately 100 people. Aside from us and another couple everyone was Thai. I only found out it was an option to stay there from stumbling across someone’s blog; I hadn’t seen it mentioned in any guides or hostels noticeboards. We were quickly beckoned over to join a large family of holidaying Thais, being offered meats off their barbeque and liquor from their mysterious liquor bags. Without being able to speak each other's language we managed to spend a whole evening communicating. Before you took a shot of bag alcohol you would shout ‘oop’ and then punctuate the shot with a satisfied ‘ahh’. With shots being taken in turns out of a upside down bottle cut about an inch below the cap, and the amount of bag alcohol and mysterious meat seemingly limitless it was a really fun evening.

The next day, feeling a little worse for wear, we headed back down the mountain. We had sort of brokered a deal with our tuk tuk driver to return and pick us up at 1pm but at 1:30 there didn’t seem to be any sign of him. We even turned down a lift back to town from our friends from the previous night as we felt to bad if the driver did turn up. With the realisation he was not coming we started the 25km walk to town in the midday-ish sun. Luckily within a kilometre a truck pulled up and gestured for us to get in the back. We were dropped a lot closer to town and got a tuk tuk the remainder of the way.

From Sukhothai we got a coach to Chiang Mai. Halfway through this heavily air-conditioned journey we pulled up at the side of the road and were told this was our toilet stop. Stepping out the coach we were greeting by the sight of a very overweight man lying on his bed, like a Thai toilet Jabba he was had a women sitting by his side and a collection of dirty possessions scattered around him. He gestured to a sign that said ‘Toilet 3 Baht’ next to an alley with a toilet at the end. I was at the end of our little toilet crew’s line and with one person left to go Jabba smiled and beckoned for me to walk deeper into his lair to use a toilet around the back. I walked past his collection of buckets and into this secret shadow toilet. I was very aware that the bus driver probably was not prepared for someone to be offered this level of security clearance and might leave as soon the last person left the level one alley toilet. I was right to be cautious because as I walked out of Jabba’s dwelling I saw the bus slowly pulling off and the door closing. With a level of speed and skill that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a Mission Impossible film I managed to jump on the bus to be greeted with the sight of all my traveling buddies jumping out of their seats to alert the driver of my fate. It was nice to know they wouldn’t have just accepted me as a sacrifice the toilet kingdom.

After the last three smaller towns Chiang Mai was a bit of a culture shock. Suddenly we were back in a tourist centre surrounded by enthusiastic market stallholders, travelers with questionable haircuts, and western food outlets like McDonald's and Hard Rock Cafe. Incidentally, I’ve never actually been in a Hard Rock Cafe. Interesting, huh? We spent three nights in Chiang Mai and with my reluctance to do expensive organised tours I spent most of the time by the pool browsing my phone or reading my book. One day I managed to rip myself away from the pool and cycle up the mountain that towers over the city. After hiring a bike of reasonable quality it took my about 3 hours to get up to 4,500 feet; the ride included a lot of sweating and a lot of stopping and wondering what I was doing. I didn’t manage to make it the whole way to the top of the mountain but stopped just shy at a palace. Before heading back down the mountain I stumbled around the palace gardens feeling incredibly light headed from cycling in the 30 degrees plus heat. Because I was wearing shorts I was given some massive fabric trousers to wear around the palace which I enjoyed immensely; I don’t need much to keep me entertained. I had a coke and sat at a viewpoint to re-align my mind with reality before the upcoming descent. The descent was amazing fun. Due to the steep decline and tight turns all the cars, minivans, and mopeds were travelling at a relatively slow pace meaning I was overtaking them all as I went down; it was fun. At one point I spent what felt like ages behind a coach, but then saw an opening on a decent straight and sped past it pedalling as fast as I could, I overtook it just before a turn and cut in front to see a clear road in front of me. Again, fun.

The day after the cycle I went for a Thai Massage at The Woman’s Vocational Correctional Institute (I have not double checked the name). It is a place where women about to be released from prison work during the day allowing them to be go back into society with experience and skills relevant to the working world. The centre has a massage parlour, spa, and restaurant. The massage was good. At one point she climbed onto my back grabbed my arms and told me to pull against her. Enthusiastically, and not remotely at the correct time, I started pulling and pulled her down on top of me. She laughed and managed to communicate that she would count down so I wouldn’t get confused. Counting down from three she pulled me backwards off the massage table causing my back to make a satisfying crack.

From Chiang Mai we travelled to Pai. A haven for people who want to call you ‘bro’ a lot, talk about energy, and participate in drum circles. The ratio of people without dreadlocks against people with dreadlocks suddenly started to level out, and the amount of tie dye spiked dramatically. Hippie atmosphere aside, Pai was a very relaxing travellers haven. Nearly everything in the town was geared towards tourism in some way with very little evidence left of the town it was before. This being said I had a very nice three nights in there: cycling out to waterfalls and canyons, relaxing in hammocks with the hostels puppies, and going for shoeless walks through the forest. The last item was borne more out of necessity than any need to feel more closely connected to the earth. We were trying to walk to a waterfall a bit outside Pai, but the track took us through a stream so often it seemed a better idea to just take our shoes off as we were having to do it so often anyway. I didn’t leave the walk with any sort of spiritual realisation apart from the fact that shoes are good and walking without them on hurts.

Leaving Pai I bid a fond farewell to the little travelling crew I had amassed and moved onto Chiang Rai which is where I am currently writing this, readying myself for a 5:30am start tomorrow to try and get to Laos. Whilst here I have seen one tourist attraction, the amusingly bonkers White Temple. An artist is currently going through the process of creating a massive white temple just outside the city. There is currently one part of it completed and its scheduled finish date is 2070, presumably years after the artist himself has died. As you enter a cardboard cut out of the Temple’s double denim, Croc wearing creator points you towards the ticket booth. You enter and walk towards the incredibly ornate white temple, whose mirrored surfaces shine uncomfortably bright, blinding you as you walk past white hands coming out of the ground and white devils riding on the back of dragons brandish their spears in your direction. Entering the temple the walls are covered with murals depicting the evil of the modern world: the twin towers stand one aflame with a plane heading towards the second, Pikachu smiles happily as demons from hell wait just below for her, above Pikachu a Minion hangs out with the kid from Ben 10, whilst an Angry Bird flies overhead. Facing this mural is a monk sitting cross legged, incredibly still observing people come and go. I overheard a tour guide say that the mural represents all the violence in the world and the things we need to let go of in order to achieve peace. I’m not sure what Pikachu’s done to be held partly responsible for 9/11 but who am I to argue.

Laos tomorrow.