Well 24^th December 0845hrs. I have been allowed 45 minutes to write something before our transport arrives to take us north to the Laos border.We will be on a slowboat in Laos for Christmas day.

I really enjoyed every minute of our time in Thailand and think that Bev has covered our visit well.

Travelling with a companion and being together 24/7 calls for a certain amount of adjustment.  Bev and i are both fairly strong in stating opinions, so we have had to adapt to saying nothing and going with the flow rather than micro managing.

We quickly decided to defer to each other in certain specific areas.

Bev is Minister for Hygiene and Medicine. This includes worrying about all dire possibilities. We arrived at a great buffet spread on one tour, I filled my plate and was about to begin when Bev said “I wonder how long this food has been laid before we arrived?”  Part of her duties include final choice of guest house. Early on I inspected and accepted a room, according to the Minister it was not clean, the colour was awful and horror of horrors there were no hooks on the back of the bathroom door.  Now I sit with the with rucksacks while Bev hotfoots it around four or five on our shortlist then tells me where I am to sleep.

I am  Minister in charge of Finance which includes all currency conversion and ensuring we have enough money to buy what the Minister of Supply(Bev) desires. I am also Minister of War and Diplomacy and deal with all difficult situations involving foreigners, this is busy job.

Bev is Minister of Information and Rumour. We have been aware that the King Of Thailand is quite poorly. Recently after visiting yet another temple we decided to have a siesta before dinner.  We were awakened by a very loud and long speech from a speaker just outside of our window.  Bev was up at the window in a trice, she reported that there seemed to be no traffic noise. She felt sure the King had died, that all the shops and restaurants would be closed and we may never eat again. I don’t know what the announcement was for, suffice to say the King is well and we shopped and ate that evening.

Bev tends to worry too much and me not enough -seems like a good team!

Transport is here must go love to all.

20^th December – Today we set off on our three day, two night trek in the hills about two hours’ drive north west of Chiang Mai. We were picked up after our Number 2 Breakfast, which at the Kavil Guesthouse consists of a cheese omelette, two slices of toast with butter and jam, and a plate of fruit that would defeat an elephant – pineapple, water melon, papaya, dragon fruit and another type of melon.

Our transport was like a pickup truck with a covered cargo area and bench seats along both sides. There were already four people on board when we climbed in – Eric from Normandy, Daniel from Toulouse, and Patrick and Elizabeth from Vienna. It became very cosy when four other folks joined us – Moko and Shelley from Japan, and their Thai friend, Annie and her mum, Villai (my guess at the spelling!).

On our way to the trekking area, we had to stop with the Tourist Police so that they could give us a safety briefing. Imagine Alan’s and my delight when it turned out to be a Northern Irish man from Holywood, called Dan Kelly, who delivered our briefing! He was full of wit and charm and made everyone laugh as well as passing on an extremely important piece of information that anyone travelling in Thailand ought to be aware of. He explained that, when things go wrong, the famous Thai smile soon disappears and warned us never to argue in any situation, whether with Thai police or taxi drivers, anyone. Instead, the tourist should dial 1155, an emergency number that connects with the Tourist Police from anywhere in Thailand. There are speakers of just about every language in the world. Even if you end up in hospital, you should call this number.

The first part of the trek consisted of an elephant ride, which was a bit of a disappointment for us. The elephants seemed less well-behaved than the ones we rode in Nepal, so we kept stopping for long periods whilst the beasts filled themselves with shrubbery and the mahouts kicked and shouted. Still, it was a great opportunity to take photos of elephants relieving themselves, much to the amusement of all the passengers.

Afterwards we were offered, and succumbed to, a photo of us on our elephant – simply because it was mounted in a frame made of elephant dung. Little does Alan’s mum know, there’s one in the post to her :o)

After the less than impressive elephant ride (during which time I had to hold myself into the seat using all my strength when we went downhill) we set off to trek to our first stop, a Lahu tribe village where we would spend the night. We only walked for a couple of hours, but it was all uphill and difficult going – more like scrambling in some parts as we leapt from stone to stone crossing rivers, or shuffled along parallel logs of bamboo. The heat here is a bit daunting, too.

We arrived at the village around 5pm and barely had time to set our packs down before we were surrounded by women and kids trying to sell us massages. This would have been a very boring time if we had not been with such a diverse and interesting group. Eric, who could barely speak any English, must have been relieved to have Daniel there, who was also French and spoke very good English. English was the shared language in the group, with Daniel and the two young Austrians so accomplished that the jokes and gentle little jibes about different cultures just knocked about all evening. Oh, and no matter how remote the village, we find they always have two western staples – Coke and beer!

Bed was a four-inch-thick hard mattress and we rested our heads on the by now familiar breeze block in a pillow slip. The bedroom was a hut on stilts that we shared with the rest of the group, the only privacy afforded by the mosquito nets that were provided for each pair of ‘beds’. As if these conditions were not enough of a challenge to sleep, the village’s cockerels, of which there were many, decided to go for a full dress rehearsal at 3am. Then they had a quick kip before the live performance at 5:30am, when they were joined by the full chorus consisting of pigs and early-rising villagers.

21^st December - So, muzzy-headed and swollen-eyed with lack of sleep, I stumbled down the steps of our penthouse to find my towel and go wash my face at the cold water tap. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the little black dog that had been cuddling up to us last night by the fire had pulled my towel down from the rail where I had hung it to dry and had made its bed in it. It wasn’t there to tell me all this, but the position of the towel and the short black hairs and dirt that now covered it from end to end were sufficient evidence. “Alaaaaaaan!”

Again this day was mostly saved by the fun we had as a group of people. The countryside was not particularly spectacular and we stopped at a waterfall to swim where we spent two hours just doing this and having lunch. Far too long, mind you, Alan found (and provided) lengthy entertainment with two local kids who started throwing broad bean pods at him in the water. Naturally he started a big war with them until mum intervened and told the kids to stop throwing her beans in the water!

The saving grace of the day was where we stopped for the night. It was again the shared sleeping arrangement, the cold water pipe shower in a shack, and the less than inviting Asian-style loos, but the setting by a river was just lovely. Alan caused much amusement when he stopped a poor unsuspecting porter who was just passing through and took his basket off him. After dinner we all  gravitated towards a lovely big camp fire.

22^nd December – Next day we walked only a short distance for our grand finale. White water rafting. The group was split between two rafts, which turned out to be excellent – we ended up with all the hooligans in ours, so we quickly overtook the others with much splashing and ramming and hollering. The ride was fun, but not exactly exhilarating as the dry season has been around for a couple of months now, allowing the river to drop significantly. Still, probably a good introduction for me, especially as I’d had the heebie-jeebies about rafting after some woman we met back in Pokhara told us a horror story about getting stuck under a raft when it overturned somewhere in Nepal!

When we reached the quieter part of the river, we transferred to a bamboo raft, which was like a submarine for most of the trip. The guy in charge was great – he had had Eric beside him on the way down the rapids and the two of them managed to communicate really well, considering – he put Eric up front with the pole, so when the guy in charge shouted “left, left”, the rest of us were translating in various forms of pigeon French. Maybe you had to be there, but I have rarely laughed so much. Sadly no photos of rafting as cameras etc were carried in separate transport.

At the end of the trip we had a nice lunch before the two-hour drive back to Chiang Mai during which the fun continued. So, although the trek was a bit ‘Mickey Mouse’ with a lot of time spent sitting doing nothing, we had the best of times because of the people we were with.

23^rd December – It was so nice to sleep in a proper bed last night! Today was about getting laundry done and drawing money and converting it into dollars for the next stage of our journey, in Laos. We set off tomorrow morning to drive to Chiang Khong where we overnight. Next morning (Christmas day!) we will be taken across the border, then we will join a slow boat on the Mekong, which will be our transport for the next two days down to Luang Prhabang. We will not forget easily the Kavil Guesthouse and its lovely owners, Noui and Gerard. Kavil is the cleanest, quietest, happiest place we have stayed so far on our travels and probably does the nicest breakfasts in the world. It's hard to believe, therefore, that this is also the cheapest place by far that we have stayed in - just under £4 per night for the room.

For now, from Alan and me, may I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas and all good things for the New Year. Please keep your blog comments and occasional emails coming, it is just so lovely to hear from you – it’s a bit like opening presents when we go into the website to check!

Photos

Noui and Kahpoon

18th December - Arrived in Chiang Mai bus station at around 6am, just getting light. We caught a tuk tuk into town and got him to drop us at one of the 'gates' into the older, moated part of the city so that we could have a wander and choose one of the guesthouses from our Lonely Planet shortlist. This is a very historic place, as the Emerald Buddha (I think I may have demoted him to a Jade Buddha in a previous blog on Bangkok) stopped here on its way to the capital. Something to do with a wayward elephant. (Me once again being short on detail, sorry.)

Anyway, Alan has appointed me Hotel Manager, as I did so much moaning in India. So I parked him at the first of our choices ("we're definitely not staying here, I've seen children") and I set off with the guide book to visit two or three other places. Found Kavil Guesthouse down a quiet, leafy little side street and was totally charmed by the warm reception and the cleanliness.

Retrieved Alan from where I had parked him and trudged to our newest new home. We had to wait until 10am for the room to be vacated. Spent the time chatting to an Australian chap who was a fanatical kick-boxer and comes here several times a year to train with the local guys. Turns out we took over his room, a bright and cheerful little erie at the top of the building.

Decided to do something with the rest of the day instead of just catching up on sleep, so went for a cruise on the River Ping. This included a stop at a wonderful herb farm where we had a snack of fruit and spring rolls. Long walk back home in the heat, so didn't do much in the evening. Got to be up at 5am for our next adventure, the Flight of the Gibbons!

19th December - Up before the lark and first into a minibus that then picked up two other groups. The second group, four young folks, decided that breakfast was more important than the fact they were keeping us waiting outside in the bus (we had skipped breakfast!). I was so fuming at their rudeness that I hardly looked at them as they climbed aboard, so it was about two hours later I realised one of them was the spitting image of my niece, Ruth. So cordial relations were established and we were all laughing and joking together as we kitted up for the Flight, which is a canopy walk with a difference, interspersed with ziplines, abseils and info about the natural environment.

The 'rides' were brill and the instructors' sense of humour was excellent. But there is an educational side to the adventure as well, so we saw coffee and tea bushes, identified a number of trees, but sadly no gibbons! I think the Ruthie-lookalike's screaming frightened them all away -

This afternoon was about relaxing and packing for our three-day trek, which starts tomorrow. It includes loads of different elements, which I look forward to telling you about on our return on 22nd. The only thing I think we are not doing is seeing the Long Necked Karens. This tribe adds successive rings to their necks to stretch them - I'm sure you've seen the photos in National Geographic. Alan thinks it odd that a whole tribe should share the name 'Karen'. Just imagine the phone ringing  - oi, Karen, it's for you.

More generally, Alan and I are becoming more and more fond of Thailand and its people. The countryside is beautiful and the people really do mostly smile. They are honest and helpful and kind - of course there are exceptions as in any country, but thankfully we have not met too many of these. Our landlady, Noui, is a case in point. She works harder than most people I know, but is always laughing, joking and helpful. Her husband, Gerard, is quite typical of the Thai male. When in evidence, he sits in reception watching telly, or reading the paper, or chatting to the guests. Alan tries to stick up for him by saying he provides a service in talking about the various trips that they can organise, but when it comes to the point of booking and organising, it is down to Noui once more. She fits this in around the cooking, serving drinks, booking people in, checking people out, shopping, doing the laundry, and who knows what else. I've told Alan we are NOT coming to live here!

Photos

18th December - Glad to say our latest digs, in Chiang Mai, have great wi-fi and I've been able to upload the photos for Bangkok last night and our time in Buri Ram. I forgot to say - little Jennifer was a fellow devotee of silly faces. Bliss!

14th December - Today was a lot about admin, so I got on the computer again, which really bores Alan out of his mind. He went off to see another temple. I think this one was gold. Oh dear, that doesn't help, most of them are. (Although he found a gorgeous, delightful exception not far from where we are staying that used the natural beauty of wood and some very simple but clever architecture to the most wonderful effect.)

Went to Kaidee May's (I'm sure Rick Stein or somebody famous visited her) for a really cheap but excellent meal.

Later we went out for our last night on the town and had a fish foot massage. Marc de C, if you are reading, I agree with you that this is a bizarre and not entirely pleasant experience. When I first put my feet in I laughed like a hysterical hyena, then I calmed down to just a teeth-gritting grimace, which the photos would show if only I could upload them (more tech probs!).

 Were walking back from town when suddenly we were accosted by one of the young folks we had met on the minibus yesterday, Ollie. He asked us to join him and his girlfriend, Dee, for a drink. We gave in reluctantly . The evening just flew past - they were a mine of information as they have already been to many of the places we want to visit. Also, it was so nice to find somebody else who shares my passion for pulling silly faces. Ollie's speciality was wobble faces! You have to really relax your face and shake your head violently from side to side as someone takes your photograph. I think my camera wasn't on a fast enough shutter speed, as the photos (when they eventually get uploaded) don't do this justice - Ollie had some great evidence of past performances on his camera! Maybe putting it on repeat and just taking loads of photos is the answer. Try it over Christmas, it's great fun and cheap. We were joined by a scary-looking Jock called Robert who was travelling on his own and turned out to be quite nice.

15th December - Slept well (haven't bored you with all the room moves and issues, maybe Alan will write about that later!) and caught our bus in good time. Which was just as well because it left nearly an hour early. Presumably all the people who had bought tickets had turned up and they just decided to get on the road. Not the most comfortable six hours of my life, but it got us there.

Buri Ram, our destination, is not on the usual tourist trail. We've come here to meet our sister-in-law Cynthia's brother, Bob. And to pick up the Red Cross parcel we requested when we were still in India and fast running out of Imodium. And did you know that you simply cannot buy emery boards in SE Asia? Maybe not true, but I couldn't find them!

Anyway, being off the tourist trail we note very quickly the difficulty in communicating. Very few people speak any English and of course our Thai just hasn't happened beyond thank you. But we reached our hotel, booked through an agent in Bangkok, which really is much too upmarket for us, but hey, I wasn't going to complain. It has a swimming pool!

16th December - This is how lovely the people are here. There is one girl on the desk who speaks a few words of English. Alan asked for a taxi to take us to the train station to book tickets to Chiang Mai tomorrow. So out rolls the hotel minibus. At the train station the driver came with us, clearly anticipating the utter helplessness of a tourist without any Thai. Thankfully I'd had the foresight to write the date and destination on a piece of paper, so with the help of this, the kind train man said we should take a bus because this would go direct whereas we would spend almost two days taking the train back to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai.

So we went to the bus station and once again our driver was so valuable in achieving what we wanted. The systems here are so efficient, the girl pointed to a computer screen so that we could choose our seats on the 'VIP coach' for the 13-hour drive. The problem is that very few of the signs or information are replicated in English. 

We spent the late morning and early afternoon in and by the aforementioned swimming pool. Alan was putting me through some 'drills' to try and build up my confidence in the water once more (some of you know my long-running saga  leading up to finally gaining my PADI Open Water qualification!). Being a bit dim, you see, it's hard for me to put my face in the water whilst remembering which features to keep open (eyes) or closed (mouth and nose). So I have to practise!

Bob arrived at the hotel mid-afternoon and it was lovely for me to meet him for the first time and for Alan to be re-acquainted. We had a good old chat, mainly about golf - Bob pays about three quid a round, which includes a caddy (always female, all ages!) although it is customary to tip these a quid as well.

Then we set off to meet up with Bob's wife, Wannee, and their little daughter, Jennifer, at a local restaurant. Thankfully my appetite chose today to return from its long leave of absence, as Wannee was born and bred in Thailand and therefore able to choose the most delicious selection of dishes from the menu. There was one particular item, a whole marinated fish the name of which escapes me, that was particularly good.

We had a really lovely time with the family - Cyn, rest assured your brother is a happy man! Wannee is kind and sweet, even though we couldn't say as much to each other as we would have liked due to the language barrier, and Jennifer is the brightest little button. We've got some great photos of them, but as you already know, I'm struggling to get these uploaded at present. As soon as I solve the problem, I will provide a link in a later blog. One of our favourites is of all three of them on the motorbike. They will travel the 40 miles back home tomorrow exactly like this.

17th December - Bob, Wannee and Jennifer popped by on a mission of mercy for me. My little gold necklace bought for us by Roy and Cyn before departure has not been off my neck for any reason since then. Yesterday morning when I woke up, the pendant had slipped out of its link. So Bob and team set off with the necklace to find a jeweller to do the repair while Alan and I packed. They came back with a great job done and no charge into the bargain!

As we sat and chatted, I asked what the brown, sausage-shaped things were that I had seen in heaps in the market. Turns out they are tamarinds, which we had heard of but not knowingly tasted. No sooner did we say that we had not tasted these than Bob and Wannee were 'on their bike' and off to a local shop to buy some for us. These are delicious, almost figgy-flavoured things that you just peel and eat like a banana, avoiding the occasional stone.

Soon it was time to say farewell and we waved the three of them off on their way. Their kindness and desire to help us experience new things has made our visit to Buri Ram very special and an experience we will not forget in a hurry. Thank you Bob, Wannee, and Jennifer.

Back to packing and the next stage of our journey. To Chiang Mai!

Photos finally uploaded! - Bangkok and Bob, Wannee and Jennifer

10^th December – Quick update on the party situation. Turns out we’ve arrived in the midst of the King’s birthday celebrations, which were in full flow on our first night. In a bizarre twist, the Red Shirts, a political faction opposed to the government, hi-jacked today’s celebrations and said they wanted to stage an all-day, 12 noon to 12 midnight, demonstration in exactly the same place as the birthday party.

So, all day the Democracy Monument and the wide streets leading to and from it, have been thronged with people in red shirts, wearing red hats, carrying little plastic heart sandwiches on sticks that do clapping and later there were fireworks as per a birthday celebration day, presumably laid on at the public expense.

It was all very peaceful and jolly and the red shirts love the Royals as much as anyone. (There are yellow shirts, too – you may remember they closed the airport a year or two ago and are now being sued by several major airlines for loss of business etc.)

11^th December – We moved to our new accommodation, a very simple but very clean little place called ‘At Home’. Like many of these smaller hotels and guesthouses, it requires shoes to be taken off at the entrance. This helps keep the floors immaculately clean and creates an artistic collection of shoes all parked higgledy piggledy at the front step.

We set off to see the Royal Palace and caught a busy water taxi to get there. The buildings that make up the complex of palace and historic temples are surrounded by a high white wall. We arrived at the opposite side from the entrance and set off to walk around. First we met one guy in what looked like an official tourism shirt who said that we couldn’t go into the compound today because it was ‘Buddha Day’ and we were wearing three quarter length trousers. But never mind, why don’t we go visit some other big temples, no charge today, and look, here’s a tuk-tuk, you climb in now...

All of this with that angry-sounding, staccato delivery that brooks no argument. But this guy didn’t reckon with Alan who, as soon as the tuk-tuk was hailed, said oh, no you don’t and send off walking again with me in tow. Nor did the next guy we met who said, no entry for people in three quarter length trousers until three thirty, you go visit these big temples until then. This even though he was standing in front of a sign saying that people in inappropriate clothing could borrow something from a dressing room at the entrance.

Having run the gauntlet and reached the entrance we joined the long queue of people waiting to be issued with appropriate clothing. When we got to the policeman doing the clothing assessments, he looked at the two of us and said, “You are perfect”. Now I personally wouldn’t go that far, but having started out a few hundred yards ago being banned totally, we are now the most acceptable people on earth!

The temples, especially the one housing a jade Buddha, really were beyond description in their beauty and intricacy. I don’t think that even photos can do them justice. Most were coated in tiny mosaic tiles, either of gold or enamel. But I’ve tried to give a flavour in the photos, which are here.

Later we went out for dinner and I proved that not all Thai cuisine is good. I ended up with what looked and tasted like virgin jungle in a thin broth of coconut milk. Alan triumphed with a lovely green curry. We have both been almost vegetarian since leaving home. This started in India for the simple reason that dodgy veg can do less damage than dodgy meat, but we now love it so much that meat or fish is a rare excursion.

Alan amused me today. Next door to our guesthouse is a travel agent and a tailor. We wanted to plan a day excursion, so Alan decided to go and have a chat with the agent who has been ‘courting’ us since our arrival in the neighbourhood. We had spotted elsewhere a trip that did in one day the three things we wanted – the floating markets, the tiger temple, and the bridge at the River Kwai. I entered stage left as Alan was saying in his frustrated voice, “But there is another agent down the road who can do all the things I want to do in one day, I’m asking you, can you do the same?” The agent chappy was looking very confused and saying “But it takes two days” or words to that effect.

You’ve probably guessed – yup, the friendly chappy was trying to sell suits for the tailor’s shop, not day tours for the travel agent! Tee hee :O)

12^th December – Today we caught a bus to a big local market and ate the most wonderful chicken noodle soup from a stall. We sat on little tables amongst locals (no other white faces) and enjoyed this lovely meal, which is like a starter and main course all in one bowl. Chopsticks were issued for eating of the lumpy bits. I noticed the girl on my right staring at us from close range. Being in one of my rare good moods, I didn’t give her my usual killer stare, instead smiling. She then gestured at the chopsticks, clearly interested to see how a westerner would cope. Lots of smiling and practising later, she had created a couple of child prodigies. (Note to self: nice things happen to smiley faces.)

Later Alan went off for a wee wander and I tried to sort out some technical problems (my camera seems to be defaulting the memory cards to ‘Write-protected’ and the manual just tells me to use the computer to change settings. I’ve tried to do this by going into properties and unchecking ‘archive’ boxes and so on, but no luck yet. Even when I changed the memory card.) I warned Alan not to be running off with a Thai Bride – he said not to worry, he’s happy with his ‘Tired Bride’. Which I am at the minute, thanks to my continued Delhi Diet as I now prefer to call it. I’ve tried drinking copious amounts of lemon juice in water, some potion for ‘Travellers’ Diarrhoea’, some tablets for the same, and, most recently, banana lassi as recommended by a Canadian girl we met. Anyone else got any ideas? (Keep them clean and sympathetic, please :O)

13^th December – Caught one of a fleet of minibuses taking tourists on their various visit programmes. The way this works is that...actually I have no idea how it works, but the day started with us being issued with a green arrow sticker and a pink square sticker that we had to wear on our chest. This tells the army of tour guides which visits you are doing during the day. We started in one minibus, then at one of the stops we were herded to another with the usual shouting and drama. But we did everything we booked up to do and it was just amazing how these people could organise hundreds of gormless tourists like us with just a sheet of paper, a pen, and some stickers.

Our first stop of the day was the floating markets, an hour and a half’s drive away. When I was a child, Mum and Dad bought a series of books from National Geographic or similar about all the regions of the world. In one, there was a wonderful picture of a floating market that I have never forgotten. Well, this floating market was nothing like that. Apparently at about 5:30am it is indeed about locals doing their food shopping, but at around 9am when the tourists take over it is like a big raft of tourist boats in some of the smaller streets.

Most of the boats are rowed by women of much the same build as myself, which I like to describe as ‘reassuringly-strong’. But there are also boats with motors, called ‘long-tail boats’ because the propeller sits at the end of a long pole which also acts as the rudder. These are only driven by men (it makes lots of noise and goes fast, therefore must be men’s work!). Due to the congestion, the boats just rub past each other making teeth-hurting grinding noises, the handlers pushing or pulling each others’ boats to help progress. No one seemed to get angry or try to take unfair advantage.

We floated past stalls housed in buildings on stilts where some of the vendors used little boat hooks to pull us alongside, all the time urging us to buy candles in little fat Buddha containers, or conical hats, or handbags, clothes, all manner of souvenirs. Other stalls were of the floating kind I remembered from the photograph long ago, where fruit and vegetables were displayed for sale  and food was cooked on little stoves. The whole thing was a big team effort, with packages of food being passed across boats by locals and tourists alike.

Back in the minibus, we drove another hour and a half to lunch, which was laid out already at a sort of motorway cafe. All the tourists converged from their various minibuses to sit at long tables, making it like a big family picnic. The food was already laid out for us, with a plate of rice for each person, then trays of chicken and cashew nut, vegetable curry, and various other dishes laid out in the middle to share. Being of delicate disposition, I put myself on banana duty – these had been set out in one large ‘hand’ (I think this is what a complete bunch of bananas is called) and it is really quite difficult to detach them, so while the others finished up their main course I wrestled the fruit from the stem.

Lunch over, we somehow got organised/reorganised back on to the right minibus. Next was the tiger temple, another hour further north. The history of this place is wonderful, starting with a sick chicken that was nursed back to health by a monk, developing through the years to what it is today, a rescue centre for tigers, many of whom would otherwise have died on the Burmese border, their parents killed by poachers.

The animals are reared intensively by the Buddhist monks and volunteers that run the monastery/park and the tigers become so accustomed to human contact that, when they have just been fed and watered, they tolerate being pawed by tourists. The paperwork states clearly that there are no drugs used to make them passive, and there is always a monk or helper very close by when one is having photos taken with the animals.

It was a real privilege to be able to touch these beautiful animals, especially knowing that they were loved and cared for. They were constantly being fed water from bottles, and the park is only open for a short time in the afternoon so that the tigers can roam free the rest of the time. The photos show Alan with some of the really big tigers – I was feeling a bit shaky in the heat so opted not to do this. [Heidi – your Dad is not wearing his hat in these photos, but that’s because hats and other loose objects are not allowed in! :O)]

Finally to the River Kwai. By this time we were starting to flag with the hectic programme, the heat, and the fact that the minibuses were full each time, allowing no room to stretch. But even without our already jaded state, I think we would have been disappointed. The guide books had warned about this. The existing bridge (in the photographs) is not the original. A bustling town has grown up around it and many shops selling tat (oops, TAT is the acronym for the Thai tourism licensing agency). The little museum is strange, disconnected and interspersed with unrelated objects (see photo of strange old Mercedes car). There are some good old photos and explanations, but nothing to hang it all together and put it in context.

The whole Kwai experience was a bit sad (in the traditional sense of the word) and I would advise anyone thinking of going there to do something else instead.

Although we were totally whacked when we got back around 7pm, tonight was the climax of the King’s birthday celebrations, so we just had to be out on the streets for me to see this! We agreed to try some street food and started with some chicken satays, our first meat in however long. These are pre-cooked and sit stacked on wire trays at the front of the stall until someone orders, then the order is placed back on the little grill to heat up again. Sometimes it’s a risky business eating from stalls, but these were always busy, indicating brisk turnover. Mind you, when I saw a small cockroach running about underneath the wire trays I nearly created a scene. But I didn’t want to spoil the moment, we were both tired, and I just got on with eating it. Fortunately, due to my continued delicate state, I had ordered just one.

Having reached the next street without keeling over from something awful, we then had some vegetable spring rolls, which were delish. Then the fireworks kicked off and we sat at a streetside table for a drink and to watch. I know that several of you reading this blog have experience the firepower demonstration at Warminster – this was just like it, with the larger explosions doing that thump-in-the-chest thing that the tank rounds do when fired.

The fireworks were amazing, but I have to say we will be glad not to hear these tomorrow night, our last night in Bangkok before we move on to Burirum and hopefully a get-together with Cyn’s brother, Bob.  We will be catching the bus at 9am on Tuesday 15^th for the six-hour journey. Burirum is 374k north east of Bangkok.

More photos

8^th December – Today was mostly about lunch in the Garden of Dreams, which turned out to be all out of wi-fi. Hey ho! We heard that there is to be another Maoist strike tomorrow, so our hotel advised us to book our taxi for 5:30am. The strikes are imposed from dawn to dusk, so we had to be up early to beat it.

Being up on time was not an issue. The move to Thamel did indeed put us in the midst of things, but it has been so noisy, even at night, that we have not been able to sleep properly. None of the budget hotels we are using have double glazing – but ours did have a cockroach (now deceased) and a column of ants, so you can’t expect everything.

The nightly power cut did nothing to help; our hotel did not provide power in the bedrooms during this period, so we took turns at packing in the light of two candles and a small torch held by the other. We packed absolutely everything, even toothbrushes, so that we could just fall out of bed, into our clothes and into a taxi.

9^th December - There seemed to be some late-night bar nearby that the locals used and their angry-sounding voices were the complete antidote to sweet dreams. At times it seemed that they must have dispersed as there would be a few moments of blessed silence, then someone would blow on the embers and the conversation raged again.

So we decided to get up at 4:45am, went downstairs and got the taxi sent early – better to be safe than sorry. I was worried that the poor taxi driver could get beaten up if he was found driving us in daylight, but on the way to the airport we saw others around. Later we heard, right or wrong, that the strike had been called off, but it was a bit surreal sneaking out in the dark like thieves.

Things got better soon – we were in the queue so early that I managed to get my hands on a highly-prized window-seat-on-the-left-hand-side-not-over-the-wing for a grandstand view of the Himalayas! This is how blasé they are about the mountains – the pilot didn’t even alert us to the sight of Everest. It’s one of the pointy white ones in the photo gallery, the one with the big right shoulder, I think.

[William – we flew in a Nepal Airlines Boeing 757.]

On our way out to the aircraft in a bus, Alan said to look at all the men behind me – I looked around and saw immediately what he was getting at. They were all so tiny, it was like a hobbit audition!

The flight only took about three hours and, boy, what a contrast arriving in Bangkok after several weeks in India and Nepal! The floors of the airport shone with polish and the dirt had not just been pushed into the corners. Everything was in a good state of repair. I said to Alan, “Right, this will do, we’re moving in.”

The whole process of arrival was so efficient and helpful and soon we were in a taxi – it may have been bright pink on the outside, but inside it was air-conditioned, clean and spacious. A proper family saloon as opposed to the reeking, dented little hatchbacks we’ve become accustomed to. As we hit the wide motorway into the city the main thing that struck us was the lack of tooting and beeping. People here use proper lane discipline instead. Marvellous!

Even the city itself is immaculately clean. Given our lack of sleep and my continued gippy tummy, we wimped out and booked a hotel from a desk at the airport. It turned out to be clean, air-conditioned and just the sort of place we need for a regroup.

As we walked into reception we had our first reminder of the time of year back home – a Christmas tree!

If we thought we were in for a quiet time in Bangkok, we were much mistaken. We wandered out in the evening to find the main thoroughfare in the grips of a massive street party. It’s something to do with the Royal Family, which the people here adore with far greater reverence than we Brits do our own Royals.  Some of the floats were amazing, a triumph of moulded plastic and lighting.

We had dinner in a little restaurant run by a lady quite well known for her cookery classes. I had the Pad Thai, a noodle and vegetable speciality, and Alan had the most fragrant, colourful, wonderful Red Curry I have ever had a tiny taste of. Once my digestive tract is back in full fettle, that’s what I’m having.

Later in bed we heard an extravagant firework display erupt, but were too tired to go to the window to look. It is noticeably hotter here than it was in Nepal, and does not cool down significantly at night. The heat and our accumulated lack of sleep knocked us out pretty quickly.

10^th December – Today we went off to look at some of the budget hotels recommended in our guide book. The first one we looked at is right beside the great restaurant we went to last night. On the other side is a coffee shop with wi-fi. These factors, the low price, and the clinical cleanliness of the place, made us decide to move here tomorrow.

Alan once again managed to find some really great little streets off the main drag, but you would be forgiven for thinking that you are in a European city. Bangkok really is a backpackers’ paradise as well as becoming a holiday destination for families, a few of which we have seen around.

We saw what we thought was clearing-up activity after last night’s big party. But it turns out that they are just doing a refresh for another session tonight! There are to be more fireworks as well, so we might just make the party tonight.

Photos