The Mong Village

I had managed to persuade Tish and Katie to come on a two day trek. Although they had already mentioned it wasn't really their thing I thought if it was anything like my trek in Chaing Mai how could you not love it! Hmm Well the day didn't start that well, due to last nights bowling alley shenanigans we overslept and had to run for the minibus, it turned out we had only gained one extra explorer though, a old-er dutch woman, but she had done a fair few treks in her time and she was probably the only one feeling fresh and up for walking miles, Andy had already confessed to me it was touch and go whether he was going to chuck up in the minivan. Once we got going though our bodies managed to sweat out the remaining toxins. The journey to the hilltribe was to be honest a bit underwhelming, literally just a dirt road, the distant views were great, hills like you would draw when you're a kid, but this wasn't jungle, just mountainous farmland. Our guide Kai was a laugh though, he kept singing Beiber and westlife songs. He wore an oversized jumper and a big hat to prevent the sun getting to him, It looked unbearable but to him this is winter! he had abnormally long thumb nails, although apparently this is fashionable because it shows people you don't do manual labour. At the summit with the Mong Tribe things picked up, we had far more time to explore this village than in Chaing Mai but the Dutch woman had to depart pretty as soon as she had arrived, how hardcore! Well the rest of us went to a school where the children were again fascinated by their faces captured on my camera. We spent a good few hours at the school and not once did I see any bullying or fighting, the older kids mentor the young.

The village structure consists of one leader (the best educated man) Village tasks are disproportional divided between men and woman, the men spend most of their time in the farms and working the fields while the woman cook, look after the children and work in the fields! There is no currency here but you share what you have for favors or trade animal and rice stocks. They do have some Laos Kip but this is solely for the purpose of buying provisions from the towns. The average life expectancy here is just 55 which maybe due in part to the locals relying on a witch doctor who gives ointments and speaks to the tribes ancestors. Although this way of life is in such contrast to our own lifestyles, none of the villagers want to go to the cities or towns if they can help it, just like the Thai tribe they are content here and happy. Maybe it is because they still have such a strong sense of community and they have time to spend with each other, two things I think we have lost in the West. This village is like a petting zoo, goats, pig, pigeon, dogs, chickens, geese, moles. and basically they eat everything here even the dogs! Before they get eaten though I guess they do have a good life, pigs and dogs chasing each other and lounging about.

Later on Tish and I helped Kai prepare our dinner, We made a traditional Lao dish with sticky rice and vegetables, we made it extra spicy and in my impartial opinion it tasted incredible, the sentiments weren't exactly shared by everyone round the table as Katie thought "it looks like shit" oh well there is no pleasing some people. One of the woman from the tribe came out while we were cooking and treated us to some mashed stickyrice with caramelised coconut inside, Kai kept refuring to her as 'Mama' because even if they aren't your parents you refer to your elders as mother and father to show respect. When evening fell the girls had a early night while me and Andy attempted to learn Lao songs round the fire with Kai and a villager who wasn't to shabby on a 4 string guitar. Kai slept in the same hut as us and started telling ghost stories about spirits possessing people in the north of the country. He even said he had seen his friend under a spirits spell.

The trek down in the morning was so much quicker than the way up, and together we managed to teach Kai a Tenacious D song, the one that starts with "this is a song for the ladies" hopefully he will sing it to future backpackers. I also managed to hunt down and catch a lizard and also my eagle eyes spotted a big scorpion scuttling along the path felt like bear grills! He was fairly safe to play with too because everyone knows the bigger the scorpion the less painful the sting, below he is dancing with a flower.

We walked down to the riverbed where we helped Kai set up the Kayaks and we paddled down The Mekong River, Along the way we had waterfights, drag races, passed slowboats, tried punting and swapped kayaks mid river a few times, the most dodgy bit was getting pass the whirlpool which the girls opt out of for a safer slower route. We were treated to a view of a gargantuan sheer limestone cliff face that at water level had been carved into small echoing caves. Soon after we hit the shore at a much larger Pak Ou caves that Buddhist monks had discovered during times of unrest. Since reading a book called 'born to run' that preaches barefoot whenever possible this may not have been the best time because while I ventured into the depths of the cave with only my camera's Infrared light to show the way I came across a massive spiny centipede like bug. After calling the others over not even Kai knew what it was but said I should stay away from it. Travelling a little further down the river (25km journey in total) we were offered free Lao Lao, a lot of the bottles had scorpions and snakes inside because its meant to give strength and vitality. After a shaky start this was a great couple of days.

sabqi dji Luang Prabang

After a messy immigration crossing, sorting out Laos visas, (you don't really know who to trust)  we are now travelling on two day slowboat voyage up a river to Luang Prabang. the luggage is stored below the narrow deck but when that is full it gets chucked on the roof and we saw a few close calls where the rucksacks almost fell overboard as they changed hands. The interior of the boat basically consists of old car seats bolted together in rows, the good thing about this is that you can slide them about the deck for more legroom, throughout the trip we were treated to dense unspoiled forest on either side of the river. occasionally you would see a small village where the children would run to the bank to greet our passing boat. Locals would also hop on and off the roof with ducks and rice supplies. After a while we ended up spinning our chairs around to play cards with the girls till our overnight stop. Feeling fairly travel weary we were bombarded with locals wanting you to come to their guesthouse. Eventually we found a decent price and the four of us traveled on the back of a pickup truck to a simple but nice house. The landlady offered us  some whiskey. It was out of a water bottle, I had the first swig because I assumed it would be ok, (it wasn't eating through plastic bottle) this was our first taste of lao lao, a local "whiskey" made from fermented rice. with fire in my belly I went in search of food, we found a place that had on the sign; "lovely jubbly" and "my wife makes good food!" sounded good, tasted good too. when it came to pay the money isn't the easiest to work with; (a can of coke cost 6,000kip) so you end up getting confused with all the zeros.

After another full day on our vessel we arrived in Luang Prabang, feeling sleepy we hoisted up our backpacks hoped onto dry land and scrambled up rocks to our first signs of a real town for 2 days, the sun was setting casting the world in dark crimson, thus we set about the exciting backpacker ritual of going from street to street trying to find a place to sleep whilst having all your possessions on your back. After we finally settled on a decent guesthouse with free tea! we began another hunt for nourishment, for the last two days we had been living off packets of perculier flavored crisps like hot and spicy crab and seaweed so I would happily settle for anything. We tasted Lao Beer that was very good when compared to the Chaing.We had a look through the nightmarket and inwhich tish managed to submerge her foot in someones excrement, very funny. We also introduced the girls to a new game I started in Bangkok where you sing to any pesky tok tok driver, so we sang a few renditions of 'wonderwall', 'like a virgin' and 'brighteyes', you get two reactions; bemusement which quickly turns to laughing, or just straight out shock, either way they to stop bothering you. At 11 there is a curfew so according to lonely planet the only place where you can still go and have a drink was the bowling ally, which when we were dropped off there was dead apart from a couple of locals 2 welshmen, Ben and Johnny who could really drink, and a frenchman, they arrived on the sameday as us by speedboat, the frenchman had grizzly face that had sucumbe to the suns gaze. we played a few drinking games of "arrogance" and "tipit" coin games that kept the barman very happy. We even tried to sneak in a few free bowling games, but you can only be so subtle with this and were soon told off. and a few hours and many unreasonable sized shots of lao lao later the bowling ally was full, I guess everywhere else had now closed. We took took'd it back to the hostel and crashed out.

The next day didn't really get started until the evening, we had to sleep off the lao lao and organise trips and buses in town, this involves shopping around and can take your whole day up. We did however climb up a lot of steps to a temple with a awesome view. In the evening we made our own Lao dishes on a fire and found this cool bar; Utopia, its full to the rafters with backpackers but has a really relaxed atmosphere,  we met up with the welsh lads and some Swedish guys, (one look just like Hanson, backwards cap and everything!) when Utopia closed the owner was kind enough to give us few who were lingering free absinthe shots to send us on our way, the took took dropped us at a local club that to be honest was rubbish so we left for our favorite watering hole, the bowling alley!

This morning we rented 4 speed scooters to find a waterfall, the bikes were heaps of rusty junk so we took it very easy especially when we had to drive over small bridges that were nothing more than lose planks of wood. The waterfall was worth it though, you can scrabble right to the top and waid across. lower down there are smaller falls and a rope swing! I think we stayed there until the girls where well and truly bored. The night ride back was full of flies but we got back ok, then onto Utopia and bowling, there is a pattern emerging here.

Pai

We moved to one of Thailand's most northern towns; Pai, the minibus ride there was along rumbling roads that snaked through the hills and mountains. When we arrived at nightfall it was such a relief to step into the fresh cool air (one of the girls next to us had been spewing vomit all the way up into whatever she had, hat, bag, crisp packet) Pai is a fairly small town situated close to the Burmese boarder, it was hit badly by the 2005 floods, but was slowly bouncing back. The first place we stayed Twin Hut were akin to those of the hilltribes we had stayed with during trekking, but still they were comfortable, a guy we went trekking with was staying there too, but probably not by choice. He had come off his scooter the day earlier whilst trying to avoid a dog, now he had to visit the hospital for fresh dressings on his wounds for the next 7 days. this made the third person I had met that had crashed their scooter in Pai.

The next morning we rented scooters! we had another traveler tagging along with us an Australian called Kath, this seems to happen quite a lot but its refreshing to have someone new with you for a few days. Cruising through the meandering roads we reached Pai Canyon. there are thin walkways on top, but  many of these had crumbled into the creek below so after hours of rock climbing I was covered in a fine coppery dust and lost a pair of ray bans. There were waterfalls nearby too which I also tried to climb but just resulted in me being drenched. After watching sundown over the canyon we drove back to the town, all journey back we had occasional glimpses of pretty big insects swooping past your face, enticed by the headlight.The evening was for relaxing so we kicked back with beer and pool, a Thai Pai dude in the corner reeling off half decent renditions of Dylan, John Denver and the Beatles until the early morning.

Today we are caving, this involved a good 5 hour journey so we started early. The roads on the way were incredible, the best I have ever driven (which isn't saying much) but so many of hairpins, spectacular views and wide yawning corners. At the cave mouth we were lead by a lantern to a bamboo raft that took us into the vast depths. It was surprisingly humid inside and the pungent smell of bat poo persisted throughout but the sheer scale of the cave was impressive. The water below us was rippling with shoals of large fish, some a good half meter in size. Occasionally we would get off the raft to walk up steep rickety wooden steps lead by our lantern guide; a withered old lady could only say 'o.k' whenever we wanted to ask any questions.  the journey back was largely uphill so Andy managed to overheat his scooter resulting much cursing as he attempted to push it up the hills and glide down on the occasional slope. He did manage to get it started before dark though and we made it in one piece to our new hostel SpicyPai; the beds in this place were suspended by bamboo and wood and you had to climb makeshift ladders this hostel was a lot busier than the previous and we went out with a bunch of people to a few local bars, I got chatting to a few hippies who tried to explain to me about aura and stuff. I still don't really get it and some of them were quite pretentious. A dog that stayed at the hostel followed us around the whole night.

So this marks our last day in Pai. We decided to make a trip to the natural hot springs the town is famous for and unwinding, we scooter'd along some dirt roads and farmland to discover what was essentially a bunch of rocks and steaming water, the eggy smell of sulphur wafting with the heat. not quite what I'd envisaged. hoping from rock to rock was like a serious game of "dont tread on the lava" because the water beneath was 95 degrees. On the way back we found the national park hotsprings which were much better, human beings can actually sit in these miniature waterfalls and not be scolded to death, I wish I could have said the same for the boiled frogs that littered the pools. After feeling throughly relaxed I headed back to Pai town, hauled on our backpacks and got a minibus here I met two girls Katie and Tish, both from Hampshire and were doing pretty much the same trip as Andy and I and for pretty much the same length of time. We were dropped off in a mouse ridden riverside hostel, lucky it was only for one night and there was nothing to do but get some sleep, in 3 hour we would be getting a slowboat down the river and across the Thai-Laos border to the town of Luang Prabang.

Flipping Mongoose

Today was a rush, we went mountain biking for the day. A guide took about 8 of us up into the foothills in a truck and you attempt to ride down. Easy right? The routs are ridiculously steep, like you have to lean way behind the saddle just to stop yourself flipping over, Out of all 8 young able participants only one person didn't fall off. I was riding a hardtail mongoose that was too small for me (in Thailand it is pretty hard to get hold of a large sized bike, but this meant it was a pretty unstable ride. The brakes here are the other way round too so it takes that extra split second to remind yourself which is your back brake. The trail itself was full of loose rocks and ledges 3 foot high in places. When I signed up for this I figured how hard could It be I have mountain biked in the UK, but I was in way over my head. Sometimes the guide would take us of the main track into a even steeper one where you had to contend with branches, rivers and tree roots too, this is where I took my first major fall. I think I must have been slightly leaning forward because on this particularly steep and narrow trail I hit a root and went straight over the handle bars, its one of those things that happens in slow motion because I remember still holding the breaks in a attempt to slow myself down, pointless of course because both wheels where in the air. I fell onto a log, a rotten one luckily that now has a human sized dent in it.

As you can imagine we had to stop pretty often for people falling off or people struggling on the punishingly steep uphills, but when we got going the guide was so quick to keep up with him my vision went blurry as I tried to analysis what rocks and grooves to transverse at speed. In another spot I hit a tree stump that wasn't going anywhere and I went over those bars yet again, I got a nice gash on my ankle this time because this time the bike followed me where I landed. The bike was in a bit of a state too, the back brake had been damaged. With only a front break I did pretty well only falling off one more time before the guide could fix it and my leg. At this point I wasnt so much riding my bike, I was falling down the mountain with style. There was only jungle route I didn't try, towards the end, the guide said it was the toughest one so without getting seriously injured after 3 falls I didn't want to push my luck, besides it turned out everyone except the guide walked their bikes out of it. At one point we stopped to have some fresh coffee that is grown all around the outdoor cafe, that was nice.

The trail leveled out at a lake where we sat in huts above the water and had lunch. This mountain biking had been such a adrenaline rush. In the evening we went out to a fancy restaurant called The Gallery, naturally I chose the cheapest food on the menu, but the meal was damn tasty. With full stomachs we walked to a local stadium to watch the tail end of a Mai Thai fight, these guys are vicious, and they just look like normal people. Next up we sat round a moving bar that had bicycle seats all the way round had a few drinks there and carried on to a club with some Irish girls. I don't remember too much after that apart from being chased by dogs on the way home.

Scooter Time

Seeing how I received my baptism of fire learning how to drive a scooter on the streets of India, Thailand's roads seem idyllic in comparison. I was on a 125 and we were going to drive up to the hills to have a look at another Temple. I think the hardest part was getting out of Chaing Mai. I quickly learnt how to weave and dodge through the narrowest of gaps in the static traffic. Ones we got to the snaking roads of the hills you could really start enjoying yourself. It was just mile after mile of winding road and as you got higher the air got thinner and cooler and we were up in the clouds. I was actually a bit disappointed when we got to the temple ahead of time, it did have some great views looking down at the city though. Back on the bikes we went a little higher to a single road, out here you use your horn as a sort of echo system, beeping on every corner to see if anyone beeps back on the other side. The road then became a stoney track that really tested the scooters offroading capabilities (I wont mention this to the rental shop) but It was worth it because we came to a waterfall, you can never have to many waterfalls!. I tried to climb it but just ended up pretty wet.

We got great ride cruising down as there were barely any vehicles, the city was packed though, I think it must have been rush hour and by the time I got back to the hostel I just crashed out. Scootering is exausting

Loy Krathong

The Lantern Festival

Tonight is the night of the Loy Krathong; the celebration of the full moon in the 12th month of the Thai calender. There is a large carnival starting just outside the old walls of the city, musicians playing gongs and drums, fire works are exploding all around. But all this pales in comparison to what is above, literally thousands of lanterns light up the sky. It reminded me a bit of some of the images of the WWII paratropper landings. I strayed away from the carnival towards the Buddhist temples to see the monks lighting their own Lanterns. Eventually I wandering through into the area where they were all being let off from. Some of the Lanterns were stuck in trees the flames licking the leaves. Other lanterns had strange downwards fireworks that you had to watch out as hot sparks fell on your head, sometimes there was a poorly aimed bottle rocket fired into the crowd. Then you had people that let their lanterns off before they had properly warmed up, this resulted in low flying lanterns grazing over peoples head. It was pandemonium, but the good kind. We fired up our own lantern and watched it escape towards the full moon.

From the Green Tulip Guest House you could appriciate the vast number of lanterns caught up in the wind. It looked like they were all flowing down a great black river. This Is a evening I won't forget and to think we came across this by accident.

The Jungles

Chiang Mai Foothills 

We are leaving the city for 3 days trekking around the foothills of North Chaing Mai, we got picked up in a big army truck type vehicle with 10 people already inside, they ranged in age from 21 to 29 and were a variety of nationalities, it was like the united nations, but with less arguing I hoped. Our tour guide was a great bloke called 'Awf' he sounded distinctly like Kim Jong il a la Team America. He played on this by occasionally belting out a 'very niiice' or 'same same' there also seemed to be a on going joke with all the guides here where they'd just shout down each other as lady boys. Driving round the base of the foothills was our first glimpse of elephant. Out of the cars we were directed to a platform to mount the elephants. Whereas the rest of the group had a traditional seat strapped to the elephant I was the only one who had the honour to ride bareback on the elephants towards the neck. It was pretty dodgy though because I was sat on the shoulder blades so every time it took a step I had to shift my weight. Everyone else had a guide on the front of their elephant in the position I was. As the elephant moved away from the platform of its own accord I yelled to Awf 'shouldn't we have a guide or something' he just called back 'you'll be fine James!' the ride was very fun but i felt conflicted as it did seem a cruel how some of the guides hit the elephants with sticks, we paid perhaps naively for a ecotour and apparently the elephants have to do 2 hour walking a day and then they can rest, the guide explained that the sticks are sometimes the only way to control them.
Either way it took getting up close and personal with these animals to truly appreciate then and you need only look in their eyes to see their intelligence. I said bye to my elephant with a trunk to handshake and set off on a 3 hour trek straight up the hills in serious heat. This was my idea of fun, you can keep your big cities this was immersion in nature, scrambling up narrow trails barely wide enough for a person with the occasional sheer drop to keep you on your toes. That night we stayed with a hill tribe, the people here had picked up most of their English from westerner passing by. This meant they had peculiar phrases like "oh my Buddha" and "no money no honey" the kids where great too and really liked messing around with my camera. We settled round a fire and one of the tribesmen played a guitar and we all sang along to Beatles and Oasis! I even attempted a bit of wild thing. The night ended with us all writing our names on a lantern and releasing it to the clear night sky. the timber hut built was suspended on stilts and consisted of food prep room, a communal area and big sleeping quarter. The outhouses had water flowing directly from the river and there were pretty big spiders that were quite distracting when your trying to take a leak, their eyes gleaming in the torchlight. we slept on mats altogether but with 13 bodies keeping the room warm it proved surprisingly comfortable.

A few of us woke at 5 in the Morning to see the sun rise over the hills but this didn't happen until about 6:30, up in the hilltops it was pretty chilly too but we did spot a couple of shooting stars and a upside down big dipper, After bidding our fair wells to the tribe we hiked further into the jungle; under the canopies the dense vegetation everything is beautiful and clearings offered incredible views, these are things that no photo can do justice. There were some points where I just had to stop still take in the moments and remember where I was. We followed the roar of the first waterfall and jumped straight in, the water was so cool and refreshing although at one point I grabbed something scaly and alive but didn't get a chance to see what it was. We clambered down to another more powerful waterfall standing underneath it was the best Power shower iv ever had, as but as soon as you lost your balance it pushed you several meters out. Our base tonight was in a hut next to the water it is similar in construction to the previous huts and had water flowing straight from the waterfall i washed in the river though, none of this shower hose rubbish.  The toilets are squatters which I think my quads are quickly adapting for. As the night closed in we sat round the a fire and played lots of games werewolf and villagers, a card game that where you must rely on your ability to read people, bluff and pursuade, I like this game.

Our last day trekking and we emerged from the jungle to a point where the river widened, after a brief safety talk we got on our blow up dingy and went white water rafting, I went overboard on a pretty quiet bit just because I forgot to lock my feet in the boat, won't be making that mistake again. Our boat guy was a bit of a character called everyone jack sparrow and said in order who would fall out of the boat, he was so certain because contolled how we fell into the rapids knocking out anyone he liked, at one point both me and Wayne were launched onto the other side of the boat hitting into Dan I have no idea how he managed to stay on board, it was all very funny for the boat guy. Next we went on traditional bamboo rafts which are affectionately known as bamboo titanic/submarine because when you had 5 guys on one of these things they were barely buoyant, at one point we tried to surf it and the bamboo started grinding on the river bed. We got to shore had some Phad Thai and piled back into the back of the truck and played werewolf and villages all the way back to Chaing Mai. the truck dropped us off at our new hostel the Green Tulip. Best days of the trip so far!

Leaving Bangkok

Hello Chiang Mai
Today I had planned to leave Bangkok but when I got to the train station it seemed everyone else had the same idea, so many people were trying to escape the floods that all flights buses and trains were fully booked for the day, luckily after a fair bit of searching I managed to sort out a bus for the next day to Chaing Mai. So this spare day I had not accounted for in the city I spent exploring Bangkok's china town and checking on the flooding situation.

That evening me and a few of the travellers from 'we bangkok' went to a live music bar, it was a great night but I think some of us suffered from pretty bad chaingovers in the morning. Thailand's premier beer is Chaing, it's a pretty cheap and strong beer, officially a 6% beer but is notorious for its wide range of strength depending on batch. so basically it can mess you up!

When we caught the bus to Chaing Mai we could see the extent of the flooding, the sandbag walls were barely holding the water off the main road and in some places it had been breached and the bus had to push on through. Apparently we were one of the first coaches to take this route since the flooding began, the journey is 15 hours long, any more of these and I am seriously concidering valium, so I hunkered down in my seat and crashed out.

Chaing Mai is surrounded by lush foothills and is far more relaxed environment than Bangkok but as Thailand's eleventh largest city there is still a lot going on, we stayed in Jai Dii
house within the old walls of the city,
We dropped our bags off and explored our milieu which consisted of many Buddhist temples the architecture is grand but it does get old seeing the same old giant buddah grining back at you inside each one! Chaing Mai also boasts some of the best night markets in Thailand, its mainly girly stuff though and you can barely move anywhere, food stalls are incredible though (i'm slightly addicted to bannana pancakes and the fresh fruit. We also saw preperations for the Loi Krathong Festival that we had stumbled apon by accident, Its an annual festival of the full moon where people light hundreds of lantens and fireworks! Later we went for a few drinks with some guys from San Fransico and saw Thai covers of western songs. Sex is on fire.

Super Buddha

Bangkok 03/11/11



Andy, Sietse and I entered The Grand Palace, this place is huge and has a beautiful temple to the side of it. There are great stone warriors guarding all the entrances and around the temple walls are intricate paintings telling an epic story. The Buddhist Monks were chanting inside the great temple sits a lavish gold Buddha, with candles surrounding it. We splashed some water blessed by the monks on our faces. We couldn't access some parts of the Palace due to a royal funeral taking place. After looking in a pretty abismal museum we started chatting to a local who told us about some hidden gems of Bangkok to check out; Wattahi, Glorious and Watin. So we traveled by tooktook to Wattahi, we sat with the monks in the shadow of the largest Buddha statue I have ever seen. Glorious is a suit fitter of the highest quality, this is genuinely where all the Armani suits are made, they just put the label on in Milan. This was a rare situation though because usually Glorious is only open to the Thai people and no westerners are allowed to buy a suit, but due to the floods sales werent so high so the government had opened the shop to tourists for 1 week only. So essentially you could buy a fitted Armani suit (minus the labels) for 250pounds, and this included a membership card to buy as many suits as you like in the future. It was so tempting but in the end couldn't be justified, the tooktook driver took us to another tailors called James' Fashion when the tailors explained as the floods get higher the prices get lower. Watin had another Buddah statue standing well over 6 stories tall and many monks.

Later in the night we went to the top of Sky Bar, a rather posh restaurant with outdoor panoramic views overlooking the whole of Bangkok. It is also where a lot of The Hangover 2 was filmed. We had the cocktail named after the movie, it wasn't the cheapest but the views were worth it, Bangkok looks best at night.

 

The King

Bangkok 02/11/11

We woke up early to meet the dutch girls to go to Tiger Temple; a Buddhist Monk run temple for orphaned tigers. I was seriously looking forward to this but our plan fell apart when we we were told the railway to Tiger Temple had been washed away and taxis to the temple were very expensive and few and far between, damn you global climate change! We decided to go to Bangkok zoo instead, naively I had expected it to be like Marwell back home, most of the animals had adequate cages, but I saw these poor elephants chained down so they could move less than a meter. This was also where I got my first case of delhi belly. We left the zoo and found ourselves in a big square where a smiling policeman was shouting at us, we were told to stop and stand up and smile because the king was approaching. some gates up ahead opened and a armored convey barreled through, I saw lots of men in uniform drapped in medals and a guy in white which I assume is the King. Apparently here in Thailand he is revered as a god and there are massive posters and paintings plastered all over Bangkok. We had a early night with a few more beers in the famously frantic street and chilled out on 'We Bangkok's roof garden, Some of the other guys from the hostel stayed out and one came back the next day sheepishly explaining how he'd 'accidentally' slept with one of the many prostitutes, what a tool.

Amphibious Thailand

Bangkok 01/11/11

In the morning we traveled on the skytrain to eastern Thailand with Sietse, a lad from Holland who had seen all the flooding the day before. walking towards a boat taxi we saw ankle high water flowing down the street, many shopkeepers had put up makeshift concrete walls around their shops that you had to clamber over if you wanted anything. There is also a water shortage in thailand with all the 7-elevens putting a premium on it, but you can always find some if you look hard enough. As we ventured further we made saw more powerfully flowing water; held back by sandbags it looked like a wateride.The water here was quite powerful as it had managed to rip up the tarmac from the road.

We hopped on a water taxi to cross the bloated river and walked off on a very rickety makeshift bridge. Unfortunately we couldn't get much further than this because everywhere had been held to a standstill. One of the locals explained to me that on this side there is a crocodile farm and when the river burst its banks they all escaped and that some were still around the flooded shops, we got the boat taxi back.. Whilst exploring we walked down the middle of a motorway bridge, it was eerily quiet with no cars. Up ahead was a aquatic metropolis, water was flowing up the streets as far as you could see. This wasn't the worse hit part of Thailand but it is difficult to comprehend the amount of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods here. Despite this the locals seemed to have adapted to the circumstances very quickly with many offering rides across the submerged streets on blow up boats, jacked up trucks, polystyrene boards and even a jetski. There were a few 'disaster tourists' and journalists around too, I saw a buddist monk happily recording events on his JVC camcorder, very surreal. There was a strange sense normality to a serious situation with people just trying to get on with their lives, I wondered how we would cope if this happened in London.

We moved away from the flooded areas to Khao San Road in search of food. This place is a real tourist trap; KFC, Merchant dealers, Suit Fitters, Lady Boys, Ping Pong Shows, Thai Masseurs and Tattooists. Jeroen; one of the guys back in Goa had warned us about the notorious tattooists of Khao San Road. They will tattoo you regardless of how intoxicated you maybe, when Jeroen was there he managed to politely refuse a lego man being inked out onto his forehead but he got a thai symbol on his ankle but as he left he saw a guy crying outside parlor because he had a half completed Zorro mask etched into his face. This place is widely known as the backpackers ghetto but It isnt really for me, after an hour you just want to get out and apparently it was very quiet at the moment. We did find good food and good company though, some dutch girls who were staying 'in the ghetto' After a few beers we got the skytrain back to the hostel.