As told by me

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

Another latish start and another brunch at Blue Diamond was followed by some more wat spotting, this time for Karen’s benefit, and, judging by the sheer volume of photos I took today, I suspect the painkillers may have been having slightly more of an effect on my general mental state than I’d thought. I certainly have been feeling pretty spaced for most of the last few days and have experienced very little discomfort from my shoulder and elbow, so I suppose that means they’re doing their jobs. Maybe I’ll see what the world is like without them tomorrow.

I took a number of photos of these ‘wise’ sayings dotted around Wat Phra Singh. Some of them lost more in the translation than others…

Ruth is coming up from Bangkok on the overnight train tomorrow and is due in at about 5am, though it’s unlikely that her train will be on time so I’ll be expecting a text from her at some point tomorrow morning.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

Today was cooking course day. Stupidly I went to Blue Diamond for a small breakfast, which of course was completely unnecessary given the volume of food to be consumed later in the day.

The minivan arrived a few minutes late, which was good as I was also running late. We picked up a few other people and then went to the house where the cooking was to take place (which was about a five minute walk from the guesthouse). Everything was a little disorganised and it was after 9.30 when our teacher announced that we were running a bit late and that she would rather skip the trip to the market, as otherwise we wouldn’t finish on time. I was pretty unhappy about this as I really didn’t care what time we finished, but was soundly outvoted. As an alternative, we headed around the back to review her fairly young herb garden which, to be fair, did incorporate most of the ingredients that we were going to be using (nearly all of which I was already familiar with anyway).

We worked our way through seven dishes, which we got to choose from a list. I made the following:
Spring rolls
Pad thai
Tom Yum Kung (hot & sour soup with prawns)
Stir-fry chicken with hot basil
Red chicken curry, including making the paste
Sticky rice with mango

The stirfry was a little too salty and oily and the spring rolls were a little overcooked but everything else worked out really well. It was fun too, though my shoulder was giving me a bit of grief by the end of it.

A little while after I got back to the guesthouse, Karen (who’d arrived on the overnight bus from Bangkok this morning) knocked on my door and I took her out to Blue Diamond (where else?) for a very late brunch (I had a ginger tea). After this, we went for a wander over towards the river and found ourselves at the night market just as it was getting started. I bought a few more things that I don’t have room for, though I did need to replace my shorts, which were ripped to shreds when I hit the bitumen on sunday.

We caught a Songthaew back to the guesthouse and, after a bit of a rest, I popped out for a quick noodle soup before snoozing in front of the TV until midnight when the Obama show happened.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After a solid nine hours of drug-enhanced sleep, I got up early and popped over to Blue Diamond again for another excellent breakfast. I then dashed back to the guesthouse to do my teeth and tend to my various wounds and associated ailments. I had almost completed this task when there was a knock on my door telling me that my minivan had arrived. I ran out to the van in bare feet and was lucky to be greeted with an almost empty vehicle in which to finish my first aid tasks. There were just two other people on this daytrip, a Cypriot couple, and I finished redressing the graze on my arm and restrapping my ankle as we headed out of town towards Doi Inthanon National Park, which contains the highest mountain in Thailand.

Our first stop was the Wachirathan waterfall, which had a pretty impressive flow of water but was otherwise fairly unremarkable. After this we popped in on a basically deserted Karen village (one of the local hilltribes), though we did get to meet some of the local ladies who were busily weaving some very beautiful fabrics, and I made a small purchase.

On to another waterfall, this one called Sirithan, after one of the Thai queens, which was again fairly impressive but not terribly interesting (the fact that I was drugged up to the eyeballs made have contributed to my general lack of interest for most of this trip). This was just a quick stop before we went just up the road to a local market run by the local Hmong people. If you’ve been with me for a while, you may recognise that name as I met this lot at Sapa in northern Vietnam, all those weeks ago. They were refugees from China way back when and some of them ended up scattered across northern Vietnam, northern Laos, norther Thailand and northern Burma. You can read more about them at Wikipedia.

Most of the stalls were selling various forms if dried fruit which looked lovely, especially the multi-coloured bag of cherries and other things that I bought. Sadly they must be a bit of an acquired taste as I thought they were horrible.

After the market we went and had lunch at a nondescript place which was clearly set up for the tourist bus crowd, where I chatted to the Cypriots a little. He runs an Indian restaurant and was complaining that since Cyprus joined the Euro, it was no longer a cheap destination so tourist numbers were down. He also expressed surprise that so many aussies came to Thailand because he thought we have the same weather in australia. Last time I checked, Cyprus was pretty hot and dry too…

Anyway, after lunch, we headed up the mountain proper to the King’s and Queen’s pagodas. These rather startling edifices were built by the Royal Thai Air Force to commemorate the 60th birthdays of the King and Queen (in 1987 and 1992 respectively), and considering the local laws about saying anything bad about the Thai royal family, I’m going to decline to comment further (see this). You can look at the photos and decide for yourself. Check out the playful elephant statues – they were pretty cool.

Having wandered around the pagodas, in glorious sun, by the way, we jumped back in the van and headed back up the hill a couple of kilometres to the actual top of Doi Inthanon, where there is an Air Force radar station with a big “PHOTOGRAPHS FORBIDDEN” sign (in case you wondering why I didn’t take any) and a bit of a view over towards Laos. Just up the hill (though clearly not at the top), there is a large sign proclaiming “The Roof of Thailand”, at which I patiently waited for about five minutes to try to get our tour guide to take a photo of me in front of it. It became fairly clear that the only way to achieve this would have been to yell at people, so I gave up and headed up to the actual top of the mountain (2,565.3341 metres above sea level), about 50 metres further up the path for this photo.

When we’d finished at the summit we started the trip back to Chiang Mai, somewhat ahead of schedule due to the small group size. I slept most of the way.

The rest of the day was pretty restful. Popped over to Blue Diamond again for dinner before a spot of tv, some more painkillers and another reasonably early night.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I woke to my alarm with the cricket still on the TV and rolled over for another hour and then realised I was running late as Charlie and Michi were coming to pick me up at 10am to go rockclimbing. Luckily, they were running late too so I didn’t keep them waiting in the end.

We went and hired me some climbing shoes and then headed out of town, Charlie and Mia on one bike and I was on the back of Michi’s bike (thankfully his scooter, rather than his new racing machine). Michi didn’t have helmets which made me a little nervous, a feeling that became much more pronounced as we headed onto the highway out of town and sped up to about 90 kph. Michi is obviously a good rider, but it wasn’t him that I was worried about. Anyway, I expressed my concern to him and he backed off the throttle a little.

While stopped at a traffic light, Michi asked Charlie if his back tyre looked ok, as we’d hit a bump pretty hard a little earlier. It did look a little flat but we put that down to the fat farang on the back (ie me) and continued on. A few minutes later, as we were cruising along at about 70 kph, the back tyre suddenly burst. Michi did an amazing job keeping the bike upright for at least 50 metres and managed to slow us down quite a bit so that when the death wobbles started, and we went down, it was a relatively soft landing, except for my shoulder that took the full force of the impact. We slid for a while and were very lucky that we had an empty road on which to come to a stop. We had three small scratches between us and were remarkably unscathed, though it was becoming rapidly clear that my shoulder was very much not ok. After a couple of minutes I was in some pretty serious pain and was very eager for the paramedics to show up. They arrived about ten minutes later and proceeded to start attending to my lightly grazed knee, which really wasn’t the priority. I think they thought I’d broken my arm as they then proceeded to start to splint it, something I was having none of. After numerous vain requests for painkillers, and some explanation in halting thai from Michi, we got in their truck and headed off to the nearest hospital, thankfully less than 10 minutes drive away.

At the hospital there was again some confusion although my demands for painkillers were met with a needle in my bum (this turned out to be a muscle relaxant and really didn’t help much). My t-shirt was then cut off (I was going to toss it anyway so that was fine) and I then spent about 20 minutes playing a game with the radiographer, who was trying to get me to stand up straight so he could x-ray my shoulder, something I was physically incapable of doing despite numerous attempts. We then tried lying down but that just brought forth howls of pain. Eventually the x-ray was abandoned, and I went to sit and moan in a wheelchair while we waited for the doctor to show up. When he walked in, he had a quick look at me and diagnosed a dislocated shoulder. He convinced me to get on the bed, and with Michi’s help and a bit more pain, we succeeded, after which he started what I thought was going to be an attempt to reset my shoulder. This resulted in some very loud yelling indeed though I’m pretty sure I managed to keep the language clean.

After a very brief discussion which consisted of “would you like a needle for the pain” followed by a very resounding “YES, NOW PLEASE”, he instructed the nurse to give me a number of needles (one of which was enormous – apparently the first dose they’d given me was for small thai people, not large farangs), and once the morphine, or whatever it was, was in, everything started to be ok again. They also gave me a sedative (presumably at least partly to shut me up) and then he quietly popped my shoulder back in.

We then had the x-ray (which was a very straightforward process now) and I even got them to x-ray my ankle, which is still a little swollen. After a little rest I then saw the doctor again who confirmed that nothing was broken, and wrote me a script for painkillers, muscle relaxants and some cream for my ankle. The total cost of this whole episode including paramedics, drugs and x-rays was 620 baht (£12), so that was cool though it was by far the most painful experience I’ve ever had and do not wish to repeat it.

We then waited for some friends of Charlie’s to come and pick us up in their big twin-cab ute, which had enough room for both bikes in the back. The people whose house we had crashed in front of were extremely helpful (not to mention the fact that she’d called the accident in within about a minute of it happening) and helped us load up and secure the bikes. They were timber merchants and Charlie’s friend Mike who is apparently in the market for some timber, announced that they were so friendly that he’d have to come back and by his timber from them in future.

After we dropped Michi’s bike off at the repair shop, Mike took Mia & I back to my guesthouse, where I received lots of lovely sympathy from Amy, who runs the guesthouse, and the nice lady who runs the associated travel agency.

The rest of the day was pretty low-key and after dinner I popped some painkillers and went to bed about 9pm.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

Another lazy start (there’s definitely a trend developing there, but hey I am on holiday) was followed by a fabulous breakfast at Blue Diamond, where Charlie had taken me for dinner on the first night. I now understand why she says she ate there every morning for the three months she was staying at the guesthouse. I had really good scrambled eggs with real bacon, ham and fresh tomatoes, washed down with a lovely ginger tea and an awesome passionfruit juice.

Duly energised, I went around the corner to the little internet cafe where I struggled, and ultimately failed, to upload any photos. I then headed back to Kafe 1985 to use their wireless while having another ginger tea (I have a bit of sore throat coming on) and an even better passionfruit juice, followed by a decent red beef curry.

I then hurried back to the guesthouse for my 3 o’clock appointment with the motorbike man, who never showed up, then set off for a wander, east of the old city towards the river.

After wandering around for an hour or so, I came across the night market, which was just starting to get set up. By the time I’d done a couple of laps though, most of the stalls were up and running and I pretty much had the place to myself. I proceeded to buy four t-shirts, none of which I have any room for (two are intended as presents and will go in the post).

Having blown the budget for the day I then started to head back to the guesthouse and popped into the lovely Bupparam temple, where I met a very friendly local guy who showed me lots of photos of Chiang Rai which he assured me was much nicer than Chiang Mai (Lonely Planet certainly differs on that point but that may be a reason to believe him). I think this was a sales pitch for me to pay him to drive me around for a day but he never got to the close so I thanked him and wandered off.

Once I got back to the guesthouse I had a little rest then went back to Kafe 1985 for another couple of quiet beers and some more photo uploading. This was followed by a quick noodle soup for dinner at a street stall and then I started back to the guesthouse for what was going to be my earliest night in a long time.

That was until I popped into the little bar near the guesthouse that was advertising “the best mojitos” for only 50 baht (£1), which was a claim I felt I had to test. Four of these later, I had three new friends, two americans and a german and we headed off together to Heaven Beach, a dirt floor club with a really rather good local cover band. After a few drinks here and a couple of games of pool, we met up with two lovely young english girls and headed off with them and a couple of other aussie blokes that were also very interested in these lasses to a streetside bbq bar for another beer. There I met a lovely girl from Colorado who I go chatting to. We went down the road to Spicy, a pretty awful nightclub (meatmarket, basically), which I refused to go into, so we sat and chatted for a while on the pavement before she dropped me off at the guesthouse on her bike (very slowly and carefully, I might add). I hope to see her again tomorrow…

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

Today started at a reasonably civilised hour and I soon discovered that there was cricket on the TV (Aus v Sth Africa from the MCG) so I watched the first 15 overs of Australia’s innings, which went pretty well. I am really starting to feel ready to be back in oz now and I think the exposure I’ve had to the cricket over the last few weeks is a large part of it. January in Australia, for those that aren’t aware, is all about doing very little and watching cricket. I sort of almost feel home, which is good as I’ll be there in just over two weeks.

After feeling assured that Australia would post a decent score, I headed out, around the corner for my standard noodle soup breakfast, found the first copy of The Guardian that Ive seen since I left London, and then started wandering around the old town, which consists of an inordinately large number of temples for such a small place. I wandered into a couple and took some photos (it’s so nice to have a decent camera back in my hands), before I stumbled across these amazing metal sculptures of alien and predator, outside an otherwise unremarkable cafe.

After that rather random but very pleasing find, I continued on to Wat Phra Singh, one of the largest temples in Chiang Mai, which is pretty impressive.

Next stop was Wat Suan Dok, a large temple and monastery complex a little way west of the old city, across the western moat. This was an even more impressive temple where you have the opportunity to chat with the english-speaking monks, though I wasn’t there at the right time to take advantage of this.

I then caught a tuk-tuk back to the guesthouse to check the cricket score (272 – pretty respectable, though the South African commentators kept reminding everyone that Australia has never beaten them in a one-day match at the MCG before), and then arranged to hire a motorbike from the travel agency attached to the guesthouse.

After a few sketchy moments while I familiarised myself with the gears (the bike I had on Koh Tao was fully automatic so I was a bit spoilt by that), I made my way west of the old city and stopped near Wat Suan Dok for a very good bbq pork with rice, and then continued westwards towards the mountain-top wat at Doi Suithep.

A couple of kilometres up the hill I started to realise that although the red zone on the fuel gauge was pretty large, the needle was moving steadily through it, and it started to seem unlikely that I would make it all the way up and back without refueling. I therefore reluctantly turned around and headed back into town to find a petrol station. I managed, through one wrong turn, to turn this into something of a mission around the other suburbs of Chiang Mai, and I finally found one about 20 minutes later, with the needle right on empty. 90p later, I had a full tank and was back in business.

I charged up the hill as the sun was now starting to dip behind the other mountains, and made it up to Doi Suithep just in time to catch the last rays of sun for the day. After marching up the 300 steps to the temple itself and taking a few shots, I headed back down the hill in what became an increasingly cold journey. I had brought my light fleece with me but didn’t think it worth stopping to put it on – this was a decision I was to regret later.

Once back at the guesthouse, I discovered that we’d lost the cricket (oh well) and then picked up my laptop and headed around the corner to Kafe 1985 who have a surprisingly good wi-fi connection – well the upload speeds are good anyway, which is important when uploading photos, which is what I proceeded to do over a couple of quiet Singha beers.

A bit after 8, I headed over to a restaurant called Outdoors (where you sit, outdoors) to meet Charlie, Mia and Charlie’s boyfriend Michi for a lovely dinner – Tom Ka Gai (sour coconut) soup, steamed fish, tempura veg and fried rice, washed down with three pitchers of frozen cocktails of varying shades of green and blue (the last one, called kamikaze, looked suspiciously artificial). By now, despite wearing my long-forgotten long-sleeved shirt and my long trousers, I was now actually quite cold. Clearly the frozen drinks weren’t helping but I was beginning to understand why the others were wearing multiple layers, including parkas – though they’re clearly a bit more acclimatised than I am.

After dinner, Charlie and Michi set off on Michi’s new, very fast red motorbike and Mia and I followed on foot to a nightclub called Discovery, where we found ourselves a table amongst the young pretty locals. The standard approach here is to buy a bottle of scotch, some pepsi and soda water and work through these as a group (it does work out pretty cheap), though cheap scotch and soda is not a particular favourite of mine. We joined in with this and sat and watched a couple of pretty decent local bands do their thing, though the bass was up far too loud and we were sitting right in front of the ridiculously large speakers so this was something of an assault on the eardrums, and as we didn’t know any of the songs, we didn’t really get full value out of this entertainment. Just before midnight, as I was about to make my excuses and head home (I wasn’t feeling great), the lights came on and the police marched in for an “ID check”. While there certainly were some young people around (it was a mainly student crowd, I think), the consensus was that this had more to do with the club not having paid sufficient bribes of late. It certainly was extremely disruptive to business but also provided an excellent opportunity for me to make my exit. They weren’t interested in seeing my ID, nor Charlie and Mia’s, though they did check Michi’s (he’s Japanese-American so isn’t quite so obviously a farang i suppose).

After a very cold tuk-tuk ride back to the guesthouse, I tucked myself into bed and promptly drifted off to the faraway tree.

More Chiang Mai photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I had a much-needed sleep-in today, checked out about midday then after a quick noodle soup, picked up my photos from Phi Phi and jumped into a taxi to the (old) airport for my afternoon flight to Chiang Mai.

The flight was uneventful though I had a superb passionfruit sorbet at the airport. Once we landed, my bag was almost first off the plane and I was quickly in a cab and off the the guesthouse that Charlie (a friend of my mate Toby’s) had booked me in to.

After a bit of a rest, Charlie and her american friend Mia picked me up and we went around the corner for dinner and much discussion about the best things for me to do whilst in the area.

After dinner, I did a spot of internet and then went back to my room to veg in front of the telly for a while before a much-needed early night.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09