Days 1 & 2, 21st & 22nd April, Munich to Bangkok

Munich, second farewell meal, asparagus, on Harald's terrace:

Munich airport:

After a delay of 4 days due to an apparently evanescent cloud of volcanic ash, I finally manage to leave Munich and make it to Bangkok, leaving slightly less chaos behind me than if Ayafalla thingummy had never erupted. The flight was fully booked, but about 20% empty. Whether due to inept communication by the airline or bullets in Bangkok will remain a mystery.
I took the airport express bus no. 4 into town. On the way I spotted a tall green building with a familiar sign: "Siemens" it said.

The A-One Inn is just around the corner from Siam Square, where the Redshirts have barricaded the main street Rama I on the other side of the major intersection with old car tyres, and are megaphoning messages to the public and to themselves.

Redshirts barricade:


For lunch I had  Thai buffet in the MBK Fifth Floor multinational food court. My first selection was rather spicy, then a fellow customer took me in hand and showed me how to create a Thai meal without chilli: rice noodles plus pineapple, dried shrimps, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, coriander, coconut sauce.




After that I had to deal with some urgent data security issues (document and password database encryption), so I was late out.
Looking for somewhere to eat at 11 pm was near impossible, it’s a business district not a tourist one like Khao San Road. A Siam Square security guard shooed me out of his precinct, then recommended the Somboondee Seafood Market and Restaurant, only 5 minutes and 30 baht away by tuk-tuk. I ate grilled fish, very fresh.

A taxidriver back finally accepted 30 baht as well, though flagfall is 35. He was also disappointed about my lack of interest in his portfolio of pretty Thai girls.

Day 3, Friday 23rd April, Bangkok

View from hotel window:

Today I went back to MBK for my first meal of the day, chicken and cashews with rice at Thai Fusion, plus a multi-fruit lassi.
Food choice well displayed and labelled:

After lunch I visited Jim Thompson's House, in the next lane along from the hotel. Jim was an American architect who came to Thailand as an intelligence agent at the end of world war 2 and liked it so much he came back to live. He played an important role in marketing Thai silk products and thus revitalised a dying cottage industry, then he became an aficionado and collector of south east Asian art and artefacts, and built a home from old Thai teak houses, filled it with artworks and created a jungle-like garden as a setting. His favourite pet was a cockatoo, which he named ... “Cocky”. The house and grounds are delightful, the interesting artworks vary from a 7th century statue of Buddha (minus head and hand) to 5-colour porcelain made in China to Thai designs, to Burmese tapestries illustrating the wedding ceremony.

The house is next to a canal (klong), so I wandered along this and watched ferry boats conveying peak-hour workers home. I got on one going in the direction of the old city. The sides were protected by blue plastic against wind and spray from the not so clean canal water. I pulled one down so I could enjoy the view, but a passenger behind me yanked it up again with the rope for this purpose.

The boat stopped at a bridge and a lady informed me I needed to get out. There were two bridges, both historical and described on a plaque in Thai and English. I discovered where I was on my map (just at the old moat surrounding the old city) and decided not to walk in the direction of the Democracy Monument, as I remembered from TV that this had been a scene of demonstrations. Instead I wandered though a temple complex and then along a klong so small it wasn’t on my map. It was however full of people and stalls and houses and animals and plants and vehicles, just a few blocks away from main roads and tourist areas, but very local and poor. Walking by rooms with TV’s, beds, washing, obviously people’s homes. Open air cooking, a set of washing machines (laundromat?), two games machines, lots of food, lots of rubbish.

At the end, a huge intersection, I crossed at red in the shadow of some travellers  who seemed to know their way, and landed in the Khao San Road. After being confronted with zero food at 11 pm last night, I wanted to check out a livelier area. And indeed it was.

Dinner: Vegetarian Pad Thai.
A parallel street, Rambuttri or something, was not so hectic, very pleasant in fact. Young tourists getting their legs massaged or their feet nibbled by fish.

Long odyssey home involving several buses, unsuccessful. Ended up in a tuk-tuk.

Day 4, 24th April, Ayutthaya

A half-day trip to Ayutthaya, Thai capital for several centuries until the Burmese sacked it in 1767 after a two-year siege, melting down the golden Buddha and burning many temples.

Bangkok Station is very tourist-friendly. I was looking at departure times and was approached by a colour-coordinated tourist-hostess, who directed me to the right ticket counter to buy a ticket to Ayutthaya for 20 baht, about 50 Euro cents. Then a uniformed man grabbed me and hurried me to platform 8, where the train was just about to leave. “Run”, he said, “that one”.
This is third class, not a problem for the two-and-a-half hour trip:

It seemed a fruitless exercise, as the train arrived in Ayutthaya half an hour after the Lonely Planet said most temples closed.
However, a moat-ferry ride
and a bike-rental later, I was admiring chedis, prangs, stupas and buddhas in the cool of the evening, also discovering hidden temples and graveyards in the back streets of Ayutthaya.

The old temple area is extensive, so I was glad to have the bike, which I had to heave over some barbed wire to get out of the grand palace compound, as I had not taken the prescribed route. In contrast to a similar situation in Italy, where I was threatened by an irate householder, today I was offered help by three friendly Australian cyclists.

The bike rental lady gave me back my passport copy and suggested I use their toilet, very practical, and helpful as so many Thais are.

Back in Bangkok, I sought out a Chinatown seafood market alley recommended by Lonely Planet, walking around for an hour in the back streets near the river until I found it. Shrimps with lemon grass, galangal and coconut sauce.

Day 5, 25th April, Anzac Day and 6, 26th April, Bangkok to Chiang Mai

I bought a Bangkok Post in Chiang Mai on Monday and read about Australians and New Zealanders commemorating the 95th anniversary. There were also articles about the current troubles in Thailand, which seemed to suggest that the government was not handling the situation well. The chief of staff had advised against military confrontation with the demonstrators, but there are hawks in the ruling party.

This is Kenneth (left) and his mate who sold me the red and black Backpack with wheels in the MBK shopping centre.
My Sunday 25th was a logistical exercise involving shopping, luggage, storage, a sleeper ticket on a train to Chiang Mai, a metro ride to Sukhumvit to find a book and some red wine to survive the journey, and leaving Bangkok, vowing that my next hotel had to have a swimming pool. The book: Guns, Germs and Steel, from Asia Books, the wine: Peter Lehman 2006 Shiraz.










This is Hualamphong Station:

The train set off on time at 22:00, and half an hour later I was enjoying a delicious dinner from the local food lady. At 00:30, the train stopped for two hours, so the ceiling fan was no longer helped by cool moving air from open windows. Luckily the 2nd class sleeper carriage was only half full, and quiet.
This is the view from my bunk, the blue cloth bits are curtains which turn your bunk into a private cabin, but also cut off the air from the ceiling fans.
The metal bits are ladders for the upper bunks and luggage-holders.

Breakfast came at 9 am. The scenery I had hoped to enjoy was fairly boring, but the worst was still to come. The train arrived not at 12:45 as planned, but at 17:00. "delay, delay, delay" said the conductor.




A useless episode with "Tourist Information" at the station was followed by a pleasant taxi-driver who took me to the nice place I am now in, the SK House. It does have cockroaches (3 dead on the floor, one live which disappeared into a crack in the ceiling), but the shower has its own floor space instead of jetting into the toilet bowl, and the swimming pool is just outside my door, very refreshing. Also it's in the old town and costs less than half of the special offer the guy at the station was offering for a large impersonal hotel instead of this cosy traveller's inn.
Chiang Mai is the most touristified place I have ever seen. Every second shop sells tours: trekking, elephant rides, white water rafting, hilltribe visits, mountain biking, ... Not to mention cooking and language courses, Thai massage, all sorts of esoteric, ecological, you name it it's here activity. Of course rock climbing, bungy jumping etc.
Hard to find a decent place to eat though, but at Ratana's Kitchen I had nice food and "Italian wine" by the glass, first ever in Thailand. It turned out to be South African Mont Clair cask white, but I wasn't bothered. OK in fact.
Due to the train delay I haven't booked a tour for tomorrow (and in fact I do not want to ride on an elephant and raft down a river, I would prefer a simple hike in the woods).
I might just rent a bike and cycle around.
Anyway I have a cool room in a pleasant hotel and tomorrow I will swim again and think about "The Gibbon Experience" on the Laos border and the slow boat to Luang Prabang.

Day 7, Tuesday 27th April 2010, Chiang Mai

Lack of sleep in the delayed train yesterday plus exhausting problematical dreams
about life changes and travel decisions led to afternoon start.
It is wonderful to start the day in a swimming pool. Also to end the day there.




Rental bike, backstreets of Chiang Mai, temple, tourist office, bus station check.
Late brunch in pleasant garden restaurant, inspected rooms too.
Good place, lovely garden with WiFi, but no swimming pool, ww.orientalgardenchiangmai.com





Booked an adventure tour for tomorrow, 08:30 - 17:00,  1500 Baht = ca. € 36 :
being tarzan on rainforest canopy ziplines among gibbons
elephant ride 30 minutes
waterfall
orchid farm
trekking 40 minutes
hill tribe village
I am requested not to tell other participants what I paid (1500 Baht), as the same package is sold in the tourist hotels for more.
I will probably also book a package Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang with the same agency
( www.bistravelmaekongregion.com ). The people were informative but not pushy.
The package is: air-con minivan to Chiang Khong, 6 hours;
Overnight in Chiang Khong in boutique guesthouse with dinner and breakfast;
Ferry across river to Laos, time for visa, slow boat ticket to Luang Prabang.
The overnight in Pak Cheng and all meals after Thailand are not included.
1700 Baht, about € 40.
There is also a fast boat, eliminating the overnight stop in Pak Cheng,
but Lonely Planet suggests it is not environmentally friendly.
I once hitched a ride on a canoe with an outboard motor on an Ecuadorian Amazon tributary, heading back to Quito for what turned out to be an appendicitis operation.
The speed boats to Luang Prabang look a lot less solid, more like an Oxbridge punt,
weighed down with backpacks at one end.


 In the same street I bought two books to keep me occupied on the two-day boat trip. Note: there are more used books in Chiang Mai than in Munich. Highlight: Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" in Swedish for 295 Baht. However, it is difficult enough in English.

The helpful people at the travel agency also told me that in Laos and Cambodia,

not only US dollars but also Thai Baht are accepted (relevant for money change now).
And that my travel plans could be changed to the following:
After Luang Prabang, Vian Vinh, Vientiane, then plane to Siem Reap
(Angkor Wat), boat to Phnom Penh, train to Sihanoukvile, then boat (sea) to Thai border,
 after that bus/train to Bangkok.
Note later: no boat on Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh: low water; no train to Sihanoukville: no service for maybe a decade; no sea ferry from Sihanoukville, replaced by bus service on improved road.
When I get online I will check the Vientiane - Siem Reap air connection, seems a good idea.  This would mean Cambodia 5/6 May Siem Reap to 10/11 May Sihanoukville, for anyone interested  in joining in this part of my trip.


 Dinner once again at Ratana's, this time a plate of northern Thai specialities, which contained a surprising variety of sausages and some strange but unexciting vegetables.


On the way back to the old city I came across some stage preparations for a ceremony next day by the moat, the king and queen were present in spirit.

Day 8, Wednesday 28th April, Chiang Mai

Collected by minibus at hotel at 8:30, then drove around town collecting others
(4 French, 2 Danish, 2 Korean). First stop orchid and butterfly farm. Here I was placed
in another bus with another group, whose programme was more compatible with mine.
I had TZ3, with treetop canopy ziplining, without bamboo raft ride.
The trekking was walking uphill to the top of the ziplining area, indeed about 40 minutes.
The ziplining was terrifying. Strapped into a harness, hanging on a pully rolling along a
cable stretched between two trees between 50 and 500 metres apart, you had to launch
yourself into space, careen across the gap, anywhere from 5 to 25 metres above ground,
waiting for a signal from the guide ahead to brake by pulling on the cable with a forked
wooden stick, then putting your feet up so as not to smash them against the landing platform.
4 of the 24 stations involved vertical drops by rope, actually not so bad as the guide
controlled the pace. After an hour the ordeal was over. Lunch was fine.

Then I had an elephant ride, another mistake. Perched on a metal and wooden platform I had to hang on grimly while the elephant swayed its way up and down hilly paths, difficult to keep a grip with a plastic water bottle in one hand and a camera in the other. It could only get better as we crossed the shallow river several times and returned on an even keel.
The bamboo rafters passed us by, that actually looked enjoyable.
The elephants were not happy bunnies, especially not an adolescent which was chained by one foot and kept rocking back and forth, lifting the one free foreleg.
After a wait we were taken to a waterfall, to relax. Some splashed. I had forgotten my swimsuit.
On the way back a brief visit to a "hilltribe village", whereby the others got to see
"longneck Karens" while I was only allowed to stroll around some souvenir stalls
(where I bought a water-bottle holder in hilltribe decor from a cheerful black-toothed crone).
So, no more such tourist attractions for me.
However, at all stops there was bottled cold water for sale and clean toilets were available, the vehicles were air-con and the organisation remarkably efficient, considering the challenges. The Tarzan experience was, from a safety viewpoint, exemplary.
Tomorrow I leave Chiang Mai without regret. And without a package, which might be another mistake, but I want to try to catch a cruise boat that only takes one day, so I will go as far as possible by public transport and inquire on the spot in Huay Xai, Laos border town.

Day 9, Thursday 29th April, Chiang Mai to Houay Xai

This was a travel day, to get from Chiang Mai to the Mekong river, about 6 hours drive away, and cross the border into Laos on the other side before the Immigration office closed. In fact I got my visa and passport stamp just before 4 pm, when they start charging an overtime fee.
I had decided against the minivan/Chiang Khong guesthouse/ferry package for 1700 Baht (good value, as it turned out) as I wanted to check the options in Houay Xai myself, hoping for a one-day trip (an illusion).

Tuk-tuk to bus station by 8 am, in rush hour.

Exemplary family on motor scooter, one helmet for three:

Bus to Chiang Khong at 8.30 booked out. Bought ticket on 9 am "Air Bus" to Chiang Rai, 3 hours. Almost impossible to comprehend what the lady behind the glass was telling me, with loudspeakers blaring announcements. In the middle of it, the national anthem was played, and everyone stood still and silent until it finished.
The bus was very professional, I even got a luggage receipt for my bag. Countryside hilly and forested, quite a few towns to slow down for, useful break of 10 minutes at a small bus station halfway there, adequately equipped with the usual toilets for 3 baht, and plenty of cold water on sale (though as it was a VIP bus, we had been given a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits by the conductress).

View from country bus stop:

Chiang Rai has a new bus station well out of town, so I had to get a tuk-tuk to the old bus station, where the local buses, red not green, left for Chiang Khong. I thought the lady at the counter said "10" baht for the ride (maybe it was 10 km? 10 minutes?), so I was incensed when the driver said 80 Baht, and walked away, but soon realised my mistake and offered 50, which was not accepted. Luckily another chap came over and said he'd take me for 50, probably going home for lunch anyway. He dropped me by a red bus in the old bus station and proclaimed "Chiang Khong!". "Chiang Khong?" asked a woman, and when I said yes she heaved my backpack into the bus, took 65 baht off me and said it left at 1 pm, which left me a good 40 minutes for lunch. That was fine by me (the minivan would not leave Chiang Mai before then), so I went across to the Scandinavian Bakery to eat a good meal, omelette with European bread. The bakery supports a charity looking after orphans, some of whom train in the shop. On the way back I realised there must be about 5 different bus companies competing on the Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong route, and my bus was the most dilapidated.

Stuff in the back of the non-VIP bus:

Nevertheless, it rocketed along as fast as the road allowed, dropping off locals, including schoolchildren, wherever they needed to get off, as well as the odd parcel. Scenery very rural, fields ploughed and sown by hand, but also by tractor.
I'd bought water and also a can of Chang beer to celebrate my good progress. This was a mistake, and the last 30 kilometers of the journey extremely uncomfortable. I considered asking the driver to stop so I could go behind a bush, then realised I really needed a few words of Thai which I did not have, and the conductress had in the meantime abandoned us. The road got bad and we went down to about 20 km an hour, on and on, I was becoming desperate, however, suddenly we stopped on a shopping street, no bus station, and it was the end, after only 2 hours. I grabbed my stuff and asked frantically where I could find a toilet. Behind the shops was a market, and at the end a public toilet but no sign in English, in fact no sign at all. A young girl, about 10, stared at me, then said: "three!" I'd been clutching a 5 Baht coin for the last half hour.  I was so relieved.
Tuk-tuk to the ferry pier for 30 Baht, bought $30 for the visa with Baht, paid 40 Baht for the ferry and put-putted across the great Mekong in about 4 minutes.

Houay Xai, Laos

 A friendly chap said "Welcome to Laos! Do you need a visa? I can help you. Here is the arrival form and here is the visa application. Do you have a photo? Good!".
Visa and Immigration completed, my friend informed me that the slowboat tomorrow was booked out, the day after there were tickets, or I could take a bus. I didn't like this news, so I said goodbye and headed up the road. 20 metres on, a woman in a shop offered me a slowboat ticket for tomorrow for 950 Baht, including transport to the pier. I thanked her and continued. Luckily the BAP Guesthouse (LP recommendation) was not far off, and the third room shown was OK. The landlady offered me a slowboat ticket for tomorrow for 1000 Baht including transport and a cushion for sitting on.
I offered a tuk-tuk driver 20 Baht to take me to the pier, 2 km away. He wanted a lot more, so I set off walking. Being Lao, not Thai, neither he nor anyone else made another offer, so I had to walk. On the way I inquired in a travel office and was offered a ticket for 900 Baht including transport.

At the pier I inspected the boats lined up and saw that the first one had open sides and comfortable enough looking seats, like coach seats (LP had warned ...).
Just before the ticket office closed at 5 pm I bought ticket number 6 on boat number 3 for 900 Baht. Without transport, without cushion.
Lorries from Thailand and China were lined up the road from the pier, a ferry was taking them one by one across to Thailand. A bridge is planned to complete the new highway from Kunming, linking Yunnan with the port of Bangkok. I saw no signs of any bridge, or any highway for that matter.  Maybe the roadworks which had caused me such anguish earlier on?   

I walked back another way and saw the backstreets of this quite pleasant little border town with lots of greenery.

Female motor-scooterists do not wear helmets, but do use parasols, mostly in pastel shades.


Two monks were walking along with black umbrellas as sun shades. By the time I had asked their permission to take a photo, they had decided that umbrellas were not suitable accoutrements for display.


In Laos, most young men do a stint in a monastery as part of the growing-up process, so there are plenty of them around.

In Laos you take their shoes off before entering a house or shop, annoying of you just want to pop in to check something out and are not wearing flipflops (I left mine in Bangkok). Then, revelation, a shop called "Duty Free" selling a large variety of wine at inflated, but not Thai-horrendous prices.
Back at the guesthouse, I discovered that I needed an adapter for my electrical equipment, something else I'd left in Bangkok because I hadn't needed it there. My landlady advised asking her nephew, along to the left, but I found no nephew. I started searching all the little shops along the main street, some checked, most shook their heads, then several starting pointing to the right, and shortly before closing time at 7 pm, I found an electrical shop, selling washing machines, light bulbs and suchlike. An adapter was produced, I couldn't make it work (I'd brought a sample plug) but after a firm push it did, so I happily went back and plugged in mobile phones and camera akku. Now I was fit for Laos.

View across the river to Chiang Khong, Thailand, from the BAP guesthouse balcony:

A lone fisherman:

At the pleasant riverside restaurant where I later ate a good meal, I drank a "Beerlao", the local brew, very tasty, while the sun set over the Mekong.

Strolling back I went down to the ferry pier (I keep saying pier but it is no more than a concrete ramp at most) to take some photos and was barked at by some dogs who didn't like the look of me, so obviously not a local. One nasty little yapper even tried to bite me, and would have succeeded had I been wearing shorts. As it was, the trouser material protected my calf and only a small bruise is visible. However, one does worry, and I regretted not having had the rabies shot as well to be sure. Only advisable if "spending much time in rural areas", now does this mean 6 months as a volunteer in a village, or does it just mean anything other than a package tour? Another dog was carrying a monkey around on its back for some unknown reason. 


Houay Xai nowadays has internet, so I went into a place offering terminals and wanted to update my travel log. To my horror, I found that the menus were now all in Thai, no fiddling with settings made any difference, the guys hanging around hadn't a clue, so I could do nothing, wasted a whole hour and felt frustrated. A quick email check with Harald reassured me that no permanent damage was done, presumably the local browser configuration was to blame.
Got back to the guesthouse and found everything shut. Remembered there had been a sign saying they close at 11 pm, and it was midnight. Found a bell and rang it. Landlady came. I apologised. Laos is generally an early to bed kind of place.

Day 10, 30th April, Houay Xai to Pak Beng by slow boat -

With a 6-8 hour boat trip ahead I had a hearty breakfast at the guesthouse and bought a large baguette tuna sandwich without mayonnaise (made to order) and a large bottle of cold water. I also had 6 spring rolls left over from dinner, where I had ordered too much, now no longer hot and crisp, instead rather soggy, but waste not, want not.

A woman walked by carrying heavy loads on a shoulder pole, something I'd not seen since China several years ago.
I asked the tuk-tuk driver taking a group from the guesthouse if he would take me too for 20 baht, he said OK. This led to later complications with duplicate tickets, but was cleared up in time.
Here is the queue of lorries waiting to be ferried one by one across the Mekong to Chiang Khong in Thailand.

Boat number 3 turned out to be "hard-seat", equipped only with wooden benches which gave you 22.7 cm to sit on, which is enough for one and a half buttocks if sitting diagonally and stretching your legs out in the narrow aisle. 

Cold drinks were on sale at the back of the boat but no food.

After about four hours, when I'd eaten my spring rolls and was rationing the tuna baguette, we stopped at a village and a swarm of children came on, each carrying a plastic basket full of drinks, snacks and cigarettes. I was still confused about the currency and horrified at the tens of thousands of Kip demanded for the smallest purchases, so ended up buying a packet of Lays potato crisps, which I spent over an hour slowly munching, staving off hunger.


The kids didn't make a big killing, not for want of trying. They seemed pretty desperate, with only one boat a day in each direction, and about ten of them selling the same stuff. This boy tried extra hard.








Along the way a speed boat came alongside and handed over a parcel for delivery further downstream. Here it is pulling away again.

A river cruise can be interesting for a few hours, then I find it gets monotonous.
The Mekong has some quite dramatic topography, especially now in the dry (hot) season when the river is very low and the jagged rocks poke up very close to the boat, which steers a windy course in the narrow navigable channel.

The occasional village, fisherman or group of cows offers some respite from the brown of the river and the green of the forest.

Most travellers settled down into reading, listening to music or sleeping. There are three women here, the one on the left with her hood over her head, which I've noticed Asian people doing often when they want to sleep or just avoid the sun.

The sanitary provisions were elementary, though due to the abundance of river water not at all smelly, only rather wet, and helped pollute the Mekong just a fraction more.

It took us 7 hours to reach the metropolis of Pak Beng, the obligatory overnight stop on the trip to Luang Prabang. (The alternative to the slow boat is a 12 hour bus trip on bumpy roads ...)  Then the battle of the guesthouses began. I had steered clear of Villa Saliki, which my landlady had wanted to book me in to for 460 baht, she said her stepson ran it. But my otherwise fruitless internet session the night before had led me to some forum comments about bedbugs there, and comments next day confirmed it was nightmarish, the host stoned and wanting to sell drugs, a mixup about missing receipts, travellers dining across the road to keep an eye on their rooms and belongings.  I paid a little boy to carry my bag up the hill, and joined a group headed for another LP recommendation, but changed to a second guesthouse after considering the mosquito net, the screenless windows and cracks in the floorboards wide enough to let in ten mossies abreast.

After a shower and change I wandered into town, was told the Labh was good at one place, went in and asked whether there was any wine, and was invited to join two women who had just ordered and were enjoying some wine.

 I had chicken Labh (minced, steamed with herbs) .Had a pleasant evening chatting, swapping experiences and tips, and drinking altogether two whites and two reds, finishing up with a talk with the host, a 29 year-old Lao, a young father, who came from Vang Vieng, a matter of much discussion.