As told by me

After a long sleep-in, interrupted by my breakfast arriving at 8.30am, the main task for today was to get back over to Kho San Road to the police station to report my stolen passport. I took a taxi over there and was in and out of the police station in under ten minutes. They really didn’t care about the details of the incident at all and simply wrote down my particulars, stamped it and sent me on my way. I was a little concerned that this wouldn’t be sufficient for the embassy, but figured that they probably deal with this issue every day, so took my one page report and headed down to the river to get the ferry down to the Skytrain at Saphin Taksin.

I got the Skytrain back to near the hotel then caught a taxi the rest of the way, and after popping into 7-Eleven (the hotel room is extravagant enough – I’m not touching the mini-bar), went back to my room to slob away the rest of the afternoon in airconditioned comfort, in front of the telly.

A bit after sunset, I ventured up to the aptly-named Vertigo bar on the rooftop (level 61), which Carl and I had made a half-hearted attempt to visit back in December (we turned up half and hour before it opened). This is, as you’d expect, a very spectacular setting, completely open to the elements, and the dining tables were almost completely full on this cloudless night (meals start at 14,000 baht = £280 per head). I went over to the bar and managed to scoff down one beer – at 300 baht a glass, I wasn’t going to stick around for two – while feeling actually quite a bit less comfortable than I had expected. Anyone with any issues with heights should definitely give this a miss, and I think I’m starting to fall into that category.

Having finished my Copenhagen-priced beer, I scurried back downstairs and caught the lift back to the relative, glass-enclosed, safety of the 40th floor, for some quality time with the Star Movies channel.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I woke with a start, with the sun streaming in the window and spent the next couple of minutes in a fruitless search for a phone, that would tell me the time. I eventually found my walkman, which informed me that it was 2pm. This was a BIG PROBLEM, as my train to Malaysia was due to depart at 2.45pm. This was not the only BIG PROBLEM to be confronted today, however.

I very quickly packed up all my stuff and was somewhat concerned that neither of my phones nor my passport were immediately evident. The room had only two pieces of furniture in it though so it was easy enough to determine that they hadn’t been left behind when I grabbed everything and ran, tossing my key onto the reception desk as I went past. I figured the 200 baht key deposit would cover the late check-out fee but wasn’t going to hang around to discuss it. I then woke up a taxi driver and requested that he get me to the train station as quickly as possible. He drove off and as we made our slow progress across town, I frantically searched my bags for my rather important lost items. It became pretty clear fairly quickly however that we were neither going to make the train station in time, nor that my passport was any longer in my possession.

I had been carrying it last night (I sometimes decide that it’s safer to carry than to leave in my room – clearly on this occasion, I was wrong), though it was in a fairly secure, velcroed pocket down around my left knee, so it’s not something that would have fallen out. The fact that my phone was also missing also did not bode well. I therefore instructed the taxi driver to take me to the Australian embassy instead, as without my passport (and the train tickets that were with it), I wasn’t leaving town today.

I got to the embassy at about 3pm, which was just as well as they close early at 3.30pm on Fridays, and after a substantial wait (in airconditioned comfort so I wasn’t complaining too much), I was dealt with by a pretty sympathetic compatriot who started the process of sorting me out. Thankfully, my wallet had been untouched by whatever nefarious individual had taken advantage of my rather too inebriated state last evening, so I still had my drivers licence and cards, which go a long way towards fulfilling the identity requirements. The colour photocopy of the picture page of my passport was also helpful and is definitely something everyone should carry with them at all times when travelling. I was given the relevant forms and told to return on monday morning with the completed forms, a police report, two photos and a big wad of baht, and they’d turn around a new passport for me by the end of play on tuesday.

This all seemed a pretty satisfactory outcome, given the circumstances, and I was even given the card of a photo shop just up the street that is familiar with the rather strict photo requirements for an Australian passport. I thought it was a good idea to get that out of the way straight away, on the assumption that I would only be given an emergency (7 day) passport and that the state of me in the photo (unshaven, hungover, sweating – you get the idea) would not be a long term concern.

With my photos in hand, I then decided that I couldn’t bear heading back across town to Kho San Road to feel sorry for myself in a cheap hostel room, so wandered around to the Banyan Tree, a five star hotel that the photo place was attached to, and did some quick sums in my head to see just how much I was prepared to pay for a day of luxury. The room rate they quoted me was, somewhat surprisingly, about half of what I had decided was my upper limit, so I checked in and headed up to the 40th floor to what was really a suite, rather than a room, with a wonderful view out over the south of Bangkok.

I spent the rest of the day holed up here, enjoying the cable tv (including that amazing match between Nadal and Vedasco), a lovely bubble bath and a fabulous (though it would want to be, given the price) bowl of Pad Thai.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

Lonely Planet had promised me monkeys, and Lonely Planet (for once), delivered.

I was woken by a random knock on my door at 7.30am, which I ignored, but I was awake, and decided to get up and capture some of the early light. This turned out to be a great plan, as I got to Wat Phra Prang Sam Yod, just two blocks away by a bit after 8, where the monkeys clearly spend their evenings, and pretty much had the place to myself. I declined to pay the 50 baht entrance fee, primarily as I was scared of being overrun by monkeys.

I spent some quality time photographing the monkeys doing their thing, helped along by a local boy who was presumably the son (or employee) of the caretaker, and had my fears confirmed as I was set upon by a number of monkeys while trying to video their antics (I have a couple of dozen great videos of the trip, btw which will have to wait until I get near a wired internet connection to upload as they are rather large files).

Here is another monkey photo:

The monkeys appear to set out from this temple and slowly take over the town during the day, guaranteeing a slimy coating of monkey shit along those parts of the footpath that the shopowners decline to hose down every day. Clearly this is not to everyone’s liking, especially the shopowner I saw with a fake M16 airgun that was taking potshots at the monkeys on the upper floors (sadly he didn’t hang around for a photo).

Lopburi turned out to be quite a find – it really is worth a visit if you’re coming or going between Bangkok and Chiang Mai and can be done in just a couple of hours between trains.

I wandered on and found a couple of other impressive ruins including, especially, the big wat across the road from the train station.

I then proceeded across the road to the train station and bought myself a ticket on the ‘ordinary’ train to Bangkok that left at 11.04 (or so the timetable claimed, anyway). Then back to the hotel to check out and enjoy an hour of airconditioned comfort before returning to the train station to await the train, which finally arrived at about 11.40.

This really was the ‘ordinary’ train – wooden seats and windows wide open. I even had to stand for about an hour until we got to Ayutthaya, which wasn’t too bad, except that I had to keep moving aside to allow the small army of food vendors that kept moving up and down the train to pass.

We arrived into Bangkok about an hour behind schedule and I jumped off at the station before the main one as it was closer to Kho San Road, and jumped in a taxi for 10 minutes of airconditioned bliss, before checking into New Siam guesthouse again.

I then headed across the road to the bar with wi-fii and spent a couple of hours uploading photos and my blog, and chatting with some friends online whilst downing a few beers. Later on I headed out to a bar with a pool table I’d been to last time I was here.

More Lopburi photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After getting up surprisingly early, considering the volume of beer I had consumed last night, I had a shower, checked out and went down the street and straight into one of the old buses which crawl out to the old city. This particular bus was loaded with working ladies and their veg for the day and was a pretty interesting ride.

Once at the old city, I had a quick noodle soup for breakfast and then hired a bike from the shop across the road. Despite the dozens of shiny new bikes lined up neatly out the front, some of them still partially wrapped in their shipping plastic, I was presented with a creaky old machine, but figured that I wasn’t going to be doing any fast movements (today was probably the first day my shoulder could have managed a bike anyway), so I trundled off towards the ticket gate.

Having bought my ticket, I proceeded in to the old city, a series of temples and lakes in a very quiet and pleasant setting – well it was quiet once I got away from the hordes of schoolkids and the loudspeakers that were no doubt instructing them on the finer points of ancient Thai history. After a lovely ride around the main temples in the central area for a couple of hours (the other bits cost extra and I didn’t have time anyway), I headed back to the bike shop and hopped on an even slower bus back into town.

The slow bus actually diverted into the bus station (about 4km out of town), so I decided to jump off and find out about buses to Phitsanulok, about an hour east, where the nearest train station is. I’d been advised by my guesthouse to get the train to Lopburi, rather than the bus, as appparently the bus drops you miles out of town.

I really shouldn’t have bothered, as these buses run every half hour. So, I jumped in a Songtheaw, and for the rather ridiculous sum of 120 baht (given that I could have got there for the 20 I’d already paid on the slow bus), I dashed back to the guesthouse, picked up my pack and returned to the bus station to get the next bus out of town.

The bus was pretty painless, and I arrived in Phitsanulok in plenty of time to make the 3 o’clock train (the next one was at about 9pm). I bought a ticket to Lopburi (393 baht!) and also managed to get the (very helpful) ticket guy to sell me a ticket from Bangkok to Butterworth (in Malaysia), though he had to consult his help screen a number of times to achieve this feat. I knew the guy in Chiang Mai was lying when he told me the train was full.

The train was pretty comfortable, with decent aircon (it would want to be, given the price), and we were again only half an hour late getting into Lopburi (a short three hours or so), though I was a little disconcerted to be the only person to get off at the station. I was reassured that it was the right place though by the massive golden monkey statue on the platform.

I walked out of the station and quickly realised that I was no longer on the real tourist trail, as I couldn’t get a tuk-tuk or taxi driver to even pay attention to me. This was just as well, as it turned out, once I found the town map outside the station, as the hotel Lonely Planet was guiding me to was a short, though very hot and sweaty, three block walk away.

Once I checked in (400 baht for room with aircon, which was much-needed), I went out the front door into the middle of the night market. After wandering, well I say wandering but it was a bit more of a crush than that, looking in vain for a decent t-shirt to buy, I had some bbq chicken on a stick, followed by what I thought would be yummy pork on a stick, but turned out to be heavily glazed gristle and fat. I then spent a while looking for a street stall that was doing pad thai, finally found one, and filled myself up, then did a bit of internet, including booking my train ticket from Butterworth to KL, then went back to my room for some tennis and eventually went off to sleep.

More Sukothai photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After finally managing to get up at a reasonable hour, I popped around to Blue Diamond for one last time, then went back to the guesthouse, packed up all my stuff, and checked-out. Although I was getting the bus, I first took a Songtheaw to the train station, to see if I could book a sleeper on the Bangkok to Butterworth train for later in the week. The guy at the ticket office wasn’t terribly helpful however and dismissed me with the news that the train was fully booked. This was pretty disappointing news as I’d been planing to do that train journey from the very start, wanted to avoid paying the extra to fly down to KL, and also didn’t really want to have to spend much time in either Bangkok or KL before my flight on Monday night. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the train was in fact full though, and decided to try booking a ticket later through the internet. A quick tuk-tuk ride then took me to the bus station, where a bus to Sukothai was due to depart in 30 minutes.

The bus ride was fairly painless – apart from some general discomfort from my shoulder and the graze on the inside of my elbow which means I can’t get it into a very comfortable position – it is slowly improving though.

Once in Sukothai, some five hours later, I found my way to the Garden House (recommended in Lonely Planet), where I got a nice enough fan room with a shared bathroom for 150 baht – the cheapest room so far. It was just getting dark as I headed out for a wander around Sukothai. It’s a pretty unremarkable town (the old city is 12km out of town) but I found my way to the night market for a good plate of Pad Thai noodles, then headed to the Chopper bar, for a quiet couple of beers to contemplate my next move. One option that started to look good was to travel on to Lopburi tomorrow, about half way to Bangkok, where there are some more ruins and a whole lot of monkeys, apparently.

I decided that I needed to do a bit more research in the internet so headed back up the street to the guesthouse to use the internet, where I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could enjoy another beer while doing so. After some research and some chatting with a number of friends (one of whom has just got engaged, but I’m not allowed to say whom just yet), I then introduced myself to a group of other guesthosue residents, who were chatting away in the restaurant. Despite being sure they were German, and therefore opening up with some German myself, it turned out that while one of them was, the remainder were in fact French. I got through this minor faux pas fairly unscathed though, and proceeded to join in the conversation.

Once the guesthouse restaurant closed at 10pm, I suggested that we pop back to Chopper bar for a nightcap or two and even convinced the two lovely swiss girls that were quietly reading their books nearby, to join us. Once back at Chopper, I found another person to join our group who turned out to be Austrian, so, in the end, I had managed to manufacture a group in which the majority did, in fact, speak German. Strangley enough, my confidence with German has grown significantly on this trip, in no small part to Denise who was in my tour group through Vietnam, who was very helpful in correcting a number of pretty basic but glaring mistakes I used to make.

What had looked like being a quiet, hot and possibly boring evening in a rather uninteresting town, therefore ended up being really quite enjoyable.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

To celebrate Australia Day (or, Invasion Day, depending on your perspective) I had a very long lie-in, then headed out for a very late brunch at a restaurant out on the northern moat that I hadn’t been to before. My next appointment was with the internet, and involved the booking of a flight from Coffs Harbour to Sydney for next month, so that I’d be on the same plane as Dad.

I also finalised my plans for the rest of the week, and will head off to Sukothai on the bus tomorrow (it’s about half way to Bangkok), where there is an ancient Thai city to check out.

A little later, I met Ruth for a drink, again at the little Mojito bar, then went around the corner for a noodle soup for dinner and headed back to my room for a couple of movies and a relatively early night.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After a very leisurely morning with a late breakfast at Blue Diamond and some more tennis from Melbourne, I headed around to Kafe 1985 in the afternoon for about three hours of quality internet time. I chatted with a number of friends on facebook and downed a few Singha beers, then decided to head out on the town, starting at the little Mojito bar near the guesthouse.

Here I met an interesting guy from Newcastle in England and a bunch of other travellers (a group of Argies, an aussie girl and her kiwi husband (Rob) and an american girl from Portland, Oregon). After a few mojitos, we went around the corner to Heaven Beach for some pool, some live music and a couple more drinks.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After getting up nice and early for my minivan pick-up at 7am, I was a little annoyed when they finally turned up at 7.45, and got even more annoyed when I realised that the van was full, and I had to sit in a very cramped little seat right up the back. I was even more annoyed when we went to another hotel and picked up another person, who simply wouldn’t fit. I raised my concerns to the tour guide at this point who assured me that they’d get another bus.

We headed out of town and proceeded north for about an hour – a very uncomfortable hour, not helped at all by the driver’s constant tailgating of other vehicles and generally driving far too fast for a van loaded with people. When we arrived at the Hot Springs – a geyser which had been turned into a complete tourist trap, I made it clear to the tour guide that there was no way I was going to sit in that cramped little seat and be thrown around the van every time we hit a bump for the rest of the day. She didn’t take my complaint very well but did eventually organise for me to join another van from the same company, in the front passenger seat. Given my still injured state, this was a much more agreeable situation, and I felt much better about the day as we set off for Chiang Rai.

My new tour guide (Mr Q) was a wealth of information. A couple of highlights were his explanation of the coloured flags that accompany the thai flag all over the place. I’d already worked out that the yellow flag is for the king, that the blue flag is for the queen, and the purple flag is for the prince (or princess – still not 100% sure on that one). Anyway, it turns out that the colour of the flag is determined by the day of the week on which they were born. He also informed us that in Thai, the full name of Bangkok is actually a small paragraph, making it the longest capital name in the world. He recited this to us, which was pretty impressive, though I didn’t quite catch it so won’t be repeating it here.

We continued north, through Chiang Rai to our next stop, at Chaing Saen, on the Mekong. We had a look at an old wat – Wat Chedi Luang, which was interesting enough, though having seen dozens of wats in the last week, I’m getting hard to impress.

We then headed up along the river to the Golden Triangle itself, the point where Thailand, Burma and Laos meet at the confluence of the Mekong (which divides Thailand and Laos and then Burma and Laos) and the much smaller Ruak river, which divides Thailand and Burma. This point is also only 265km downriver from Yunnan province in China. As you’re probably aware, this area gets its name from the opium trade, as this was a point where, at least in the past, opium growers would trade their goods for gold on the no-mans-land island in the middle of the river.

We jumped on a large longtail boat at this point and went upstream to have a look at where this trade took place (a long, empty island), then headed downstream for a while to pop in to a little tourist trap island on the Laotian side, where for the princely sum of 20 baht, they let tourists come in and spend some money on local handicrafts and loads of crap. So I did make it to Laos, after all…I even managed to have a Beerlao…

Here we were exposed to some very sorry looking kids who clearly spent all day begging, and then, once back on the boat, were all handed wet towels, presumably with which to cleanse ourselves of the experience.

Once back in Thailand, we stopped for a brief photo opportunity at the big golden buddha, erected for one of the Thai Queen’s birthdays, before heading northwest to the Thai-Burmese border post at Mae Sai.

At Mae Sai, we stopped at the market next to the border post and while the rest of the group did some shopping, I exited Thailand, on the 30th day of my 30 days, coughed up my 500 baht, and entered Burma. Except I didn’t, I turned straight around and went back to Thailand, where I was granted another 15 days stay in the country.

After the border formalities were concluded, we headed off to visit a hilltribe village, though they were only just on a hill above the floodplain. These were the Akha people, like the Muong and most of the other hilltribes, refugees from China at some point in the last couple of centuries. Although these visits are thorougly contrived, I did my bit by paying an old dude with a pipe 10 baht to take his photo. Here it is:

This was followed by a long, three hour drive back to Chiang Mai, where I was finally dropped off at about 9pm. I went around the corner for a quick Pad Thai for dinner then went back to my guesthouse and watched Van Wilder: party liaison, which was mildly entertaining.

More Golden Triangle photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

Today was a bit of a rest day. I decided to go drug-free today and so took things pretty easy. I watched quite a bit of tennis from Melbourne then booked myself on a trip to the Golden Triangle (where Thailand, Burma and Laos meet) which includes the opportunity to pop over the border to Burma and get another 15 days in Thailand.

I met Ruth for a quiet dinner then we both headed back to our places for an early night.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I was awoken by a text from Ruth, bang on 5am, informing me that her train was running some five hours late (she was going to come to mine for a shower and a bit of a kip before going to find herself a hostel). Why I needed to be informed of that information at that hour, was not immediately obvious. Anyway, I drifted back to sleep eventually and woke up at a much more reasonable hour.

While watching a bit of tennis, I started trying to decide what to do for the rest of the trip. I’m not really in a position to be carrying my backpack anywhere just yet – the shoulder can probably manage it but the graze on my elbow is pretty nasty and is taking its time to heal. So, the trip to Laos is starting to look difficult. The original plan was to head up through Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong, then cross the river to Laos and get the slow boat (two days) to Luang Prabang. I was certain that I wasn’t up to this, and the only other feasible alternative for getting to LP would be to fly (about $175 from Chiang Mai – too much). The only other overland way into Laos is via Vientiane, which would have been about 1.5 days on a bus. The other issue is that my 30 days in Thailand expires on Saturday (24th).

So, I can overstay my visa for a few days (at a cost of 500 baht per day and some risk of getting hassled by the police), go to the immigration bureau and pay 2000 baht for a weeks extension, or do a run up to the Burmese border and get myself an extra 15 days.

Charlie sent me a text and I went to meet her for brunch at the UN bar, after which I headed back to the guesthouse to watch some more tennis while charging my laptop. Once this was sufficiently charged, I went to Kafe1985 once again to research my options further on the internet.

Ruth finally showed up at about 3pm, having found herself a hostel and settled in, and we had some lunch before heading off for a bit of a wander around the old town. After a couple of wats, Ruth headed back to her hostel for some much-needed sleep.

We met up later for some dinner and then met Charlie and Mia for some drinks. Ruth bailed pretty early as she was still pretty tired from her epic train journey. I stayed out for a few more then headed home myself.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09