Sa wat dii khrap!!

Firstly, apologies for the time delay in getting this blog out but we've just been having too much fun and have neglected our duties! We're fine, well almost..... and nearly at the end of our first Thailand tour and about to cross into Laos in the North in the next couple of days.

We arrived at Phuket airport on the 4th February and got a bus straight to Phuket town and checked into Talang guest house for a very reasonable 300 Baht (about 5 pounds)a night in a rooftop room. Phuket town was a nice laid back introduction into Thailand. We found authentic and very good Thai cuisine right alongside the typical ex-pat establishments serving burgers and chips. We also found a really nice cafe called Barhemien where we could while away the hot midday sun with lashings of green tea. The reason we came to Phuket was obviously because of the beaches and two days later we got a bus down to Kata beach, foregoing the pleasures that we were told we could expect at Patong, (lady boys r us!) We arrived in a baking midday heat and had to search high and low for accomodation, eventually finding the hotest room imaginable for 350 Bt. We started to think that we should have just stayed in Phuket town and got the bus over every day as we were smack bang in high season. Never the less we moved room to another guesthouse the next day and headed for the beach. The words Costa-del-sol came to mind as there were sunbeds three deep across the whole of Kata beach and Karon beach a bit further north. We soon realised that Phuket is now well and truly on the 2 week holiday map and so took our spots next to the sun burnt Europeans for a couple of days and then hightailed it to Bangkok. We had originally planned to visit Kho Phi Phi, which is a beautiful island south of Phuket but we were told that there were so many people and the prices were so high that we would be better coming back a couple of months later.

So we jumped on an overnight bus to Bangkok, very similar to the buses we got in South America. This journey proved to be something of a struggle and we decided (maybe rather too rashly!) that there would be no more over night journeys. We checked into Lamphu house in a district called Banglamphu, which was as about a backpacker area as you could wish for! It's just west of the famed Khao San road, which has to be seen to be believed! There are last nights revellers passed out on the pavement mixed with last nights Pad Thai off the street vendors cart. The Pad Thai here is a unbelievably cheap meal in a tray and up until recently (the illness and some insider knowledge on what happens to the oil) quite a tasty one. By day and night there is a cachophany of local bar/restaurant staff trying to entice you in, mixed with the impossibly cheap shops and stalls selling everything from top-of-the-line (read: knocked-off) ruchsacks to fake hair. We spent the next five days exploring the sprawling metropolis of Bangkok and probably didn't see even a third of it. We took a walk to the grand palace and accompanying Wat housing the Emerald Buddha and a boat down the river to the sky train to Siam Square to do some window shopping. Other than that we walked around and tried to soak up this incredible city and decided to come back and see the rest of it at a later date.

An aside: Thailand is littered with Wats, like to one by the Grand palace in Bangkok, which are huge, mutli-tiered roofed, gold embossed Buddhist temples that generally house a buddha image or two and are magnets to the Thai people themselves for worship and a nice little earner for the authorities from tourists. They can literally be in the middle of nowhere, with the resident monk(s) looking after them. They are spectacular but because they are everywhere we soon got numbed, and as a Dutch traveller said: Once you've seen one Wat, you've seen them all!

Anyway, back to our trip. Our next destination was to be Chiang Mai, which would have been another overnighter, which we'd sworn off so we had an 2-night stop over in Phitsanuluk. This meant that we get to see a lot more of the scenery and enjoy a few more places. Phitsanuluk turned out to be a welcome break from the tourists centres of Bangkok and Phuket. We seemed to be the only westerners there and a lot of people watching was the order of the day, especially in the chaotic day-market. One very surreal moment happened when we were having dinner the first night. A loud trumpet sounded and a troup of about 50 tuk-tuks came single file down the street with just one tourist in each. It must have been a tour of some kind, where the tourists weren't allowed to visit the streets on their own!! This night also happened to be Valentines Day and by chance we ate in a restaurant that had live music, which even though it was a Thai guy singing quite odd songs about 2 feet away, was very romantic.

We got another bus to Chiang Mai and were immersed in the tourist trail well and truly. We went to stay at Julie Guest House, which came with a very high rating and were told that we could only have a room for two nights but it would be possible to change after that. We then thought about going to Pai and coming back to Chiang Mai nad asked if we could reserve a better room for our return and were told no, despite our current room being reserved. This put the whole Chiang Mai stay on a bad footing and we later found out that all the guesthouses get commision off running treks and that they only reserve rooms for people who go on these treks. We had no design to contribute to the already over-exploited trekking routes out of Chiang Mai and had our hearts set on an Eco-tourisn trek in northern Laos and for this we seemed to get scorned. Either way we made the most of Chiang Mai and walked around the huge night markets and signed up for a cooking course to complete our Asian cuisine. Oh, and Alex got her hair cut, apparently it was awful but it looks fine! The cooking course was situated on an organic farm outside of Chiang Mai and the setting was absolutely idyllic. It was a real bonus to see the foods growing and then to cook everything ourselves under the watchful eye of Sue, our instructor, also the smallest person ever (see video)!

After a few days we got a bus to pai, which is a little town 4 hours closer to the Burmese border than Chiang Mai. The journey up there definitely showed us some of the "real" Thailand we had hoped for. The bus was like an American school bus affair with no leg room and both doors continuously open for people to jump on and off and to sit in. The road barely had a straight part to it and went up through some really gorgeous scenery, as did the bus to Mae Hong Son that we would get a couple of days later. Pai is a gorgeous little town, very much born from an influx of hippies, but we could see how easy it was to stay. we visited a Wat up in the hills, which had the best views around and generally took it easy.

We also went further to the Burmese border to a place called Mae Hong Son, which was not as pretty as Pai, but still gave a certain charm off when eating Pad Thai by the lake. And that was how I got sick we think! feeling pretty rough, we went back to Pai to do a Yoga class! By this time Alex was ill as well and we managed to postpone the Yoga for a day but were both feeling decidedly ropey throughout the whole experience. And what an experience, I've never done Yoga before but was informed that it was quite a vigorous session, exactly what we didn't need, I thought Yoga was meant to be relaxing!!

Still feeling rough, we got a bus back to Chiang Mai and then another bus to Chiang Rai which is where we are now, waiting to cross the border to Laos, and stocking up on supplies. Our next blog should be from somewhere in Laos, we hope to spend about 20-25 days there and then straight onto Cambodia for a couple of weeks before going onto Bangkok and the islands.

Hope you enjoyed reading,

Love Alex and Tom xxx